Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30

Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30 - Paperback

$35.91
$35.91
Skip to product information
Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30
  • Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30
Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30 - Paperback

Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30 - Paperback

by Gary Scharnhorst
$35.91
$35.91

Book Overview

Westerns are rarely only about the West. From the works of James Fenimore Cooper to Gary Cooper, stories set in the American West have served as vehicles for topical commentary. More than any other pioneer of the genre, Owen Wister turned the Western into a form of social and political critique, touching on such issues as race, the environment, women's rights, and immigration. In Owen Wister and the West, a biographical-literary account of Wister's life and writings, Gary Scharnhorst shows how the West shaped Wister's career and ideas, even as he lived and worked in the East.

The Virginian, Wister's claim to literary fame, was published in 1902, but his writing career actually began in 1891 and continued for twenty-five years after the publication of his masterpiece. Scharnhorst traces Wister's western connections up to and through the publication of The Virginian and shows that the author remained deeply connected to the American West until his death in 1938. Like his Harvard friend Theodore Roosevelt, Wister was the sickly scion of an eastern family who recuperated in the West before returning to his home and inherited social position. His life story is punctuated with appearances by such contemporaries as Frederic Remington, Rudyard Kipling, and Ernest Hemingway.

Scharnhorst thoroughly discusses Wister's experiences in the West, including a detailed chronology of his travels and the writings that grew out of them. He offers numerous insights into Wister's adroit use of sources, and provides revealing comparisons between Wister's western works and the writings of other authors treating the same region.

The West, Scharnhorst shows, was the crucible in which Wister tested and expressed his political opinions, most of them startlingly conservative by present standards. Yet The Virginian remains the template for the western novel today. More than any other Western writer of the past century and a half, Wister's career merits resurrection.
ISBN9780806194097
Author Gary Scharnhorst
PublisherUniversity of Oklahoma Press
GenreBiography, History, and Literature
FormatPaperback
PublishedFebruary 2024
LanguageENG- English
Pages278
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Literary Criticism Nonfiction

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

More by Gary Scharnhorst

Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30

Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30 - Paperback

Owen Wister and the West: Volume 30 - Paperback

By Gary Scharnhorst

About Gary Scharnhorst

Gary Scharnhorst is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico; the author or editor of over fifty books, including award-winning biographies of Mark Twain and Owen Wister; the past president of the Western Literature Association; and the editor of the scholarly journal American Literary Realism.

You may also like