The Virginian is a 1902 debut novel set in the Wild West by the American novelist Owen Wister. Describing the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, it helped establish the western novel as a literary genre. The unnamed protagonist in The Virginian, who courts a local schoolteacher and defers personal revenge while meting out justice to a cattle thief, set the tone for the rough but civilized cowboy, a prototype for scores of ensuing books,...

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Indian wars, lynch mobs, desert crossings, mining camps, stagecoach robberies-all are brought vividly to life in Owen Wister's Red Men and White, the first book of western stories written by the author of the classic cowboy novel, The Virginian. Published in 1895, most of the stories in Red Men and White are based on actual events as told to Wister during his extensive...

Owen Wister's wry humor enlivens this comedic story of three sophomores during exam week at Harvard. Two frowning boys sat in their tennis flannels beneath the glare of lamp and gas. Their leather belts were, loosened, their soft pink shirts unbuttoned at the collar. They were listening with gloomy voracity to the instruction of a third. They sat at a table bared of its customary sporting ornaments, and from time to time, they questioned, sucked their...

The author reanimates "The Virginian" in these short tales lamenting the passing of the wild American west: "The smell of the sage-brush! After several years it was getting to me again. All day long it breathed a welcome and a sigh, as if the desert whispered: 'Yes, I look as if I were here, but I am a ghost, too, there's no coming back.'" —Owen Wister, "Members of the Family."

Excerpt: "The Governor descended the steps of the Capitol slowly and with pauses, lifting a list frequently to his eye. He had intermittently pencilled it between stages of the forenoon's public business, and his gait grew absent as he recurred now to his jottings in their accumulation, with a slight pain at their number, and the definite fear that they would be more in seasons to come. They were the names of his friends' children to whom his excellent...

The "true" story of the Wantley Dragon. Set at Christmas time, it is a tale of a Baron, his daughter, a brave knight, True Love, and the terrible Dragon of Wantley. Oh, and don't forget the wine.

Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 - July 21, 1938) was an American writer and historian, considered the "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing a biography of Ulysses S. Grant and the novel The Virginian, in which Wister created the archetypal cowboy.