Owen Wister

In this romantic and raw adventure set in the untamed wilderness of Wyoming of 1886, an anonymous college graduate ventures out West where he encounters gun fights, lynching, cattle rustlers, high-stake poker games, Indian attacks, and a brave, honest and imposing cowboy known simply as the Virginian. Presented as the archetypal, ideal hero of the 'western' genre (which was novelised for the very first time in this same book), the Virginian, a foreman at Shiloh Ranch, carries a strong sense of justice that wins him the heart of independent young schoolteacher Molly Stark, and finds his sworn enemy Trampas at the end of a gun. The novel developed many of the central tropes and themes of the western, including morality, faith and honour, and presents its formidable, unforgiving landscape in stunning detail.

In this romantic and raw adventure set in the untamed wilderness of Wyoming of 1886, an anonymous college graduate ventures out West where he encounters gun fights, lynching, cattle rustlers, high-stake poker games, Indian attacks, and a brave, honest and imposing cowboy known simply as the Virginian. Presented as the archetypal, ideal hero of the 'western' genre (which was novelised for the very first time in this same book), the Virginian, a foreman at Shiloh Ranch, carries a strong sense of justice that wins him the heart of independent young schoolteacher Molly Stark, and finds his sworn enemy Trampas at the end of a gun. The novel developed many of the central tropes and themes of the western, including morality, faith and honour, and presents its formidable, unforgiving landscape in stunning detail.

This classic describes the life of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War and taking the side of the large land owners. The Virginian paved the way for many more westerns by such authors as Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, and several others. Owen Wister (1860-1938) was an American writer and "father" of western fiction. When he started writing, he naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. Wister's most famous work remains the novel The Virginian.

"With us, you see," Kuprin makes the reporter Platonov, his mouthpiece, say in Yama, "they write about detectives, about lawyers, about inspectors of the revenue, about pedagogues, about attorneys, about the police, about officers, about sensual ladies, about engineers, about baritones- and really, by God, altogether well--cleverly, with finesse and talent. But, after all, all these people are rubbish, and their life is not life, but some sort of conjured up, spectral, unnecessary delirium of world culture. But there are two singular realities- ancient as humanity itself: the prostitute and the moujik. And about them we know nothing, save some tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions in literature... " Tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions... Let us consider some of the ways in which this monstrous reality has been approached by various writers. There is, first, the purely sentimental: Prevost's Manon Les caut. Then there is the slobberingly sentimental: Dumas' Dame aux Cam lias. A third is the necrophilically romantic: Louys' Aphrodite. The fertile Balzac has given us no less than two: the purely romantic, in his fascinating portraits of the Fair Imperia; and the romantically realistic, in his Splendeurs et Mis res des Courtisanes. Reade's Peg Woffington may be called the literary parallel of the costume drama; Defoe's Moll Flanders is honestly realistic; Zola's Nana is rabidly so.

Reproduction of the original: The Virginian by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Red Men and White by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: The Pentecoast of Calamity by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Lin McLean by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: A Straight Deal or the Ancient Grudge by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: A Straight Deal or the Ancient Grudge by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Mother by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: The Pentecoast of Calamity by Owen Wister

Reproduction of the original: Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister