James Moffat

Who was James Moffat?

James Moffat, was a Canadian born British author who wrote under several pen names.

He produced many pulp novels for the United Kingdom publishing house New English Library during the 1970s. Moffat's pen names included Richard Allen, Etienne Aubin and Trudi Maxwell. Moffat's pulp novels mostly focused on youth subcultures of the late 1960s and 1970s, such as skinheads, hippies and bikers. In particular Moffat wrote a series of popular and commercially successful books featuring what came to be known as his most famous protagonist, the skinhead antihero Joe Hawkins. Moffat often expressed admiration for his subject matter and commented on social issues, mostly from a right wing perspective.

The collected works of Richard Allen were reissued in a six volume set by ST Publishing in the 1990s. A BBC TV documentary about his life, Skinhead Farewell, aired in 1996. Allen's formulaic and sensationalist writing style has been imitated by Neoist writer Stewart Home. Mark Sargeant wrote a feature in Scootering Magazine titled The Richard Allen Legacy. An interview titled The Return of Joe Hawkins with publisher George Marshall was in issue seven of Skinhead Times.