The Virginian - Softcover

Wister, Owen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451519515 ISBN 13: 9780451519511

Publisher: Signet Classics, 1979

Synopsis

1979, mass market paperback reprint edition, Signet, NY. 334 pages. A classic novel which changed the cowboy hero, who became a definite presence, hero, to readers then and now. An effective afterword discusses Wister's life and how many of his ideas changed when he made his first trip to the American West.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This is the classic novel of the American West, which served as a model for thousands of later novels and films.

It is a story of ranch life and cowboy living at the turn of the century. The hero of the novel, the "Virginian", the only name by which he is known, has left his native state at an early age to try his fortunes in the western country. After roughing it along the way, he settles on Judge Henry's cattle ranch in Wyoming, where the owner makes him his right-hand man. The Virginian is strikingly handsome, twetny-seven years old, and, though unversed in the ways of the world and ignorant as to book learning, he has character and personality that inspire respect from all who know him. He manages to force on a turbulent community his idea of law and order-- "getting the drop" on an enemy, vigilante committees, and lynch law.

The novel recounts his adventures, including his romantic initiation at the hands of Molly Wood, the Vermont girl who became a western school techer. And it introduces him to Trampas, the legendary villain who is the prototype of the "bad guys" of future western novels and films.

"The Virginian" has been filmed three times, most memorably with Gary Cooper, and also became a long-running television series.

About the Author:

Owen Wister (1860-1938) was born in Philadelphia and raised in Germantown, Pennsylvania. At age 25, he spent a summer in Wyoming on the advice of his physician. Encouraged by his friend from Harvard, Theodore Roosevelt, he later wrote about his experiences and observations of the American West. His greatest success came in 1902 with the publication of The Virginian, which was a bestseller for months and would be dramatized and filmed numerous times. 

John Seelye is a graduate research professor of American literature at the University of Florida. He is the author of The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain at the Movies, Prophetic Writers: The River in Early American Literature, Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Early Republic, Memory's Nation: The Place of Plymouth Rock, and War Games: Richard Harding Davis and the New Imperialism. He is also the consulting editor for Penguin Classics in American literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: Signet Classics
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0451519515
• ISBN 13: 9780451519511
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback