The Virginian, Owen Wister
The Virginian, Owen Wister
List: $37.00 | Sale: $25.90
Club: $18.50

The Virginian
A Horseman of the Plains

Author: Owen Wister

Narrator: Robert G. Slade

Unabridged: 14 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/01/2019

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

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 novelized for the very first time in this same book), the Virginian, a foreman at Shiloh Ranch, carries a strong sense of justice. This 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 honor, and it presents its formidable, unforgiving landscape in stunning detail.

About Owen Wister

The scion of a wealthy Germantown family, Owen Wister (1860-1938) showed promise as a musician early in his life, but his father directed him into a career in banking and then the law. Plagued with neurasthenia, Wister took a variant of the "rest cure" of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, traveling to Wyoming on Mitchell's advice. From these experiences, Wister began to write short stories about the West. His Western writing culminated in the 1902 publication of The Virginian, the most popular Western ever. In addition to novels, Wister wrote short stories, operas, plays, poetry, and nonfiction, including biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Henry on December 15, 2024

This novel The Virginian, the first real western book published in 1902, began the genre as a popular art form in America the wild cowboy and the schoolmarm, cattle rustling the lynchings, Indian attacks an explosive card game the deadly shoot out between the good guy and the villain in the streets......more

Goodreads review by J.G. Keely on October 12, 2007

I cannot believe that I sat in American Lit reading Hawthorne when I could have been reading this. If you have never heard of this book, then I am not sure why; just as I am not sure why I had never heard of it. It is surely Romantic, and sometimes Heroic, but there is a depth of emotion, wit, and t......more

Goodreads review by Charles on October 27, 2019

Review of free Kindle edition A Public Domain Book Publication date: May 12, 2012 Language: English ASIN: B0082RIL04 250 pages Considered to be the first real American western, The Virginian began an entire new genre of literature. A genre whose authors and readers are not limited to America. A fine novel......more

Goodreads review by Mike (the Paladin) on August 23, 2015

I have been meaning to get to this book for years, literally. It's one of the novels I'm sure my dad read and he wasn't really a reader, at least not when I knew him. I'm sure that some of you will like this book far better than I do. I think that it's an exceptionally well written novel. The prose i......more

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