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    Riders of the Purple Sage
    Riders of the Purple Sage
    Riders of the Purple Sage
    Ebook399 pages3 hours

    Riders of the Purple Sage

    By Zane Grey

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    "Riders of the Purple Sage" is a Western novel by American author Zane Grey, first published in 1915. The story centres on Jane Withersteen and her struggle against oppressive persecution by other members of her Mormon church. Considered by many to have had a pivotal role in the formation of the popular Western genre, this fantastic novel is highly recommended for all lovers of Western fiction. Pearl Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was an American writer most famous for his adventure novels of the Western genre. Other notable works by this author include: "Riders of the Purple Sage" (1912), "The Last Trail" (1906), and "The Lone Star Ranger" (1915). Grey continues to be widely read, and his novels and short stories have been adapted for the screen more than a hundred times. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction and biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherClassic Western Fiction Library
    Release dateJul 19, 2017
    ISBN9781473345911
    Author

    Zane Grey

    Zane Grey (1872–1939) was an American writer best known for western literature. Born and raised in Ohio, Grey was one of five children from an English Quaker family. As a youth, he developed an interest in sports, history and eventually writing. He attended University of Pennsylvania where he studied dentistry, while balancing his creative endeavors. One of his first published pieces was the article “A Day on the Delaware" (1902), followed by the novels Betty Zane (1903) and The Spirit of the Border (1906). His career spanned several decades and was often inspired by real-life settings and events.

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    Reviews for Riders of the Purple Sage

    3.5/5

    330 ratings37 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Digital audiobook read by John Bolen.From the book jacket: Cottonwoods, Utah, 1871. A woman stands accused. A man, sentenced to whipping. In … rides … Lassiter, a notorious gunman who’s come to avenge his sister’s death. It deoesn’t take Lassiter long to see that this once-peaceful Mormon community is controlled by the corrupt Deacon Tull – a powerful elder who’s trying to take the woman’s land by forcing her to marry him, branding her foreman a dangerous “outsider.” Lassiter vows to help them. But when the ranch is attacked by horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and a mysterious Masked Rider, he realizes they’re up against something bigger, and more brutal, than the land itself…My reactionsI hardly know what to write about this classic of the Western genre. It’s full of adventure, violence, strong men and women, tenderness, brutality and an abiding sense of justice. And, of course, there is the landscape, which Grey paints so vividly it is practically a character. Yes, the storyline and dialogue are a bit melodramatic. But Grey’s story still captured this reader’s imagination with its sense of drama, almost non-stop action, and bold characters. I was reminded of the many western movies I watched with my Daddy in the ‘50s and ‘60s. They were exciting and the good guys always won. Clearly those movies (and other books of the genre) had Grey’s strong foundation on which to build. I’m glad I finally read it.The digital audio available through my library’s Overdrive system was read by John Bolen. I was not a great fan of his delivery, which seemed overly dramatic to me. I might have enjoyed this better had I read the text.
    • 4/5
      Review first posted on Audiobook Reviewer.

      Riders of the Purple Sage
      Written by: Zane Grey
      Narrated by: Ann M. Richardson
      Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
      Series: Riders of the Purple Sage, Book 1
      Unabridged Audiobook
      Release Date:04-18-16
      Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press Inc.


      Riders of the Purple Sage is a classic western from author Zane Grey. It was published in 1912 and has remained in print and popular to this day. The story is set in 1871 in the Utah territory. There is no separation of church and state. The Mormon church and it’s patriarchal society hold all power.

      The main character Jane is very non-traditional for the time period and for Mormon women. She is unmarried in her late twenties. She is also wealthy because of inheriting her father’s estate. She further defies convention by refusing to marry one of the Mormon elders in the area who demand she get in line with church teachings. Worst of all, in the eyes of her Mormon neighbors, is her belief in treating all men, whether Mormon or Gentile (non-Mormon) with equal dignity.

      Her property is very valuable since it has a reliable water source. Her horses are also well known and sought after. Elder Tull wants to marry her, her wealth equal in his eyes to her beauty. The local Bishop, Dyer, supports Tull in his attempt to make Jane into a respectable Mormon wife. When Jane does not jump at the chance to become another of Tull’s wives, Tull and Dyer set about forcing her by attacking her Gentile ranch hands. Without her trusted hands, Jane cannot keep the ranch functioning.

      As Jane continues to fight for what she feels is right and not what the Mormon men tell her is right, help comes from an unexpected and very dangerous source. Lassiter, a gunman known for his antipathy towards Mormons and accused of killing several Mormon men, arrives at Jane’s ranch. His reputation proceeds him and causes the to resort to even more violence in an attempt to force Jane into marriage.

      Lassiter is an anti-hero. He is a man who has willingly killed other men. He has a very open hatred of all things Mormon. Yet he demonstrates more honor than the religious men trying to rob Jane of her independence and wealth. The pairing of a gunslinger and a Mormon woman drive the plot to an unexpected and thrilling conclusion.

      I enjoyed the book, the first Zane Grey I have read or listened to. My only disappointment was it took Jane so long to realize that the Elder and Bishop were not motivated by religion but by greed. She was naive. Other than that, all the characters were well rounded.

      I had previously listened to the version narrated by Mark Bramhall. I was interested to hear the book narrated by a woman, Ann M. Richardson. Different narrators can bring different tones or emphasis to the same book. I was very interested whether the gender of the narrator would affect the story itself. I found the gender of the narrator in this particular instance did not make a difference. Ms. Richardson did a very fine job of narrating the book. After listening to the same passages read by the two different narrators, I found I enjoyed them both. If this is an edge at all, it goes to Ms. Richardson. Her voice is very pleasant and she handles the range of voices, male/female, very well.

      Rating: Story (Plot) 4

      Rating: Performance 5

      Rating: Production Quality 5

      Rating: Attention Holding 4

      Rating 4.5

      ABR received this audiobook for free from the Publisher, Submitted in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect our opinion of the audiobook or the content of our review.
    • 5/5
      Very GoodWestern published in 1912 set in 1871This Western is set in Utah which is very much Mormon country and you very much get the impression that the author really didn’t like the Mormons. The principal character is Jane Withersteen who is a Mormon who has defied the church by not getting married and running her father’s ranch with 2 herds of cattle by herself. When she befriends a gentile, Venters, and adopts a gentile child she is targeted by the church who get her riders to quit, then run off one of her herds into the hands of cattle rustlers and take pot shots at a man named Lassiter who has come looking for a friend of Withersteen’s (who she buried some years ago). When Venters goes looking for the missing cattle and shoots a mysterious masked rider the plot thickens. I’m not widely read in the Western genre but this is held to be one of the genres seminal novels. The prose is somewhat overblown and everyone seems to speak in high emotion but the plot itself is a good Western trope, isolated farmhouse being besieged etc.. Withersteen is assisted by the gunslinger Lassiter, there is cattle rustling and lots of details of horses with several being important characters in their own right!Overall – Entertaining early Western novel
    • 5/5
      I would not normally be interested in westerns, but this was recommended to me based on my interest in religion. Far from being the stereotypical tale of vigilante justice in the dry and dusty American west, it is a subtle and intriguing book which excels in painting a vivid portrait of the landscape, which itself acts as an important character in the story. It is said that Grey's full opinion of Mormonism can not be divined without also reading the other works in which he treated the subject, but regardless, the book is fascinating in its juxtaposition of Christian imagery with a character, Lassiter, who seems completely removed from any Catholic or Protestant ideal of Christian morality. The important aspect of the novel is not whether Bishop Dyer, Elder Tull, and their ilk were right or wrong; it is the inner transformation that takes place within Lassiter, Jane, Venters, and Bess, particularly the women, as Bess discovers a new identity and Jane enters a metaphorical tomb, rolling the stone that will finalise her death to her old understanding of religion and her resurrection into some other kind of being. One of the great failings I see around me in society today is that when someone questions their own religion, whatever it might be, they often respond by rejecting religion outright, rather than rejecting only the tradition in which they were taught and open-mindedly questioning whether truth lies elsewhere. It is not clear on a first reading what Grey intends for his characters, or what he wants his reader to think, but he raises significant questions and provides fodder for deep philosophical thought. This is hardly a simple cowboy story. It earns its place alongside the greatest classics of world literature.
    • 1/5
      Jane Withersteen is a Mormon woman who has inherited her father's ranch. She dares to defy the church and faces opposition in more ways than one from church leaders. The book has the elements one would expect in a typical Western novel. I just don't really enjoy the genre, and I never really enjoyed Westerns on television. My inability to get into this book and enjoy it is probably more of a reflection of my dislike of the genre than of the quality of writing. If you enjoy Westerns, give it a try in spite of my dislike. I made a comment to a friend of mine as I was reading the book that the negative comments one heard about Mormons during the Romney presidential campaign paled in comparison to the contempt for Mormons in the novel. I really only stuck with the book because of the group read.
    • 2/5
      This was my first experience with a classic western by Zane Grey ... and my last if I have anything to say about it. I'm just not into westerns. I don't have much else to say other than it's not my thing - I don't like the environment, the 'cowboy' perspective, etc. etc. I tried.
    • 4/5
      Though a reader's patience will well be tested by Jane Withersteen, Zane Grey's lush descriptions of Utah's wilderness carry the rather slow moving plot to a bunch of rip roaring endings.
    • 5/5
      Another great book! This is in Utah. He gives the most detailed descriptions of the terrain there. Lots of cowboys and horses in this one. I loved it!
    • 4/5
      Can I call it a "pop classic?" Given its popularity, its place in the Western romance and adventure categories, and its place in the archives of the early 20th century, I will.
    • 3/5
      Zane Grey never allowed political correctness or historical accuracy to interfere in his storytelling but in the case of the overly dramatic, downright cheesy Riders of the Purple Sage, he should have. I am a fan of Grey’s and have enjoyed other books of his that I have read, but I really had trouble sticking with this story to the end. This is a book that should have disappeared, stored away up in grandpa’s dusty attic years ago. It is certainly not a book that should be used today to represent Zane Grey’s work.I had hoped that Riders of the Purple Sage would be a straight forward “cowboy story”, instead it is a strange blend of Morman bashing and romance. The plot points sound good on paper: Cattle rustlers, two couples falling in love and overcoming many obstacles to be together, along with horse stealing, a mysterious masked rider and a little orphan girl, but the one point the readers will take away from this book is the low opinion of Mormon’s that the author must have had. The one area that I felt Zane Grey excelled in was his beautiful descriptive writing. Although it seemed a little over-blown at times, I have travelled in this area of Southern Utah and the colors and scenery are incredible.Riders of the Purple Sage was originally published in 1912 and unfortunately just doesn’t hold up well today.
    • 3/5
      Although I'm not a fan of Westerns, Riders of the Purple Sage is a classic in the genre and I've wanted to read it for some time. A Zane Grey group read gave me the motivation I needed. I listened to the audio version read by Mark Bramhall and I'm almost certain that I enjoyed listening to Bramhall's narration more than I would have enjoyed reading the book. His voice for each character was just right, even for the women. A lot of the dialogue was dated, but somehow Bramhall managed to keep it from sounding corny.I wasn't as bothered as some were with the negative portrayal of Mormons. The book is set in Utah Territory in 1871, at a time when there was a great deal of mistrust between the Mormons and the non-Mormons who lived there. Brigham Young was still living and the church had not yet rejected polygamy.The thing that eventually got to me was Jane Withersteen's gun phobia. It seemed to be more than pacifism. She had a horror for guns, and she did everything she could to get the gunman Lassiter to give up his guns. Jane Withersteen was the owner of a large ranch with lots of livestock. Guns would be necessary for protecting the livestock from predators or for quickly putting fatally injured animals out of their misery. Jane needed to know how to use guns, and her employees needed access to guns. Her attitude toward guns made no sense for her position or life in that place and time.Westerns will never be a favorite genre for me. However, at some point I would like to try Grey's Frontier trilogy, starting with Betty Zane, since it's based on Grey's family history.
    • 2/5
      I never got into this novel. It does have some attractive elements, mostly those that came to be hallmarks of the Western genre: strong attention to place, elaborate landscape visuals, loneliness, nostalgia, a mystical awe of nature and open spaces. While these were conveyed well, they tended to be drowned out by the more Victorian elements. The novel is dominated by emotionally stunted people romancing each other at an agonizingly slow pace, which never carried any appeal for me. And while I've been guilty of poking fun at their faith, I still found the level of hatred directed at Mormons in this book to be unsettling.
    • 3/5
      I'm currently researching the western genre for my own writing, and this book reads through and through like a classic western. Riders, rustlers, gunfights and runaway cattle -- it's all here. While the duels are riveting and certain characters (Lassiter!) are memorable, it certainly drags on in the middle. Still, if you're patient with it, this is a decent read.
    • 3/5
      I was looking to learn about action writing. There were some examples in climbing rocks and horse riding, but the logic of the novel fell apart for me and I stopped.
    • 5/5
      Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane GreyRecall a band by this name and love their music. This book starts out with a few men who tend to Jane Withersteen's horses that she's raising and selling after training them.In Utal the Mormoms rule the land and they want her land and round up men to steal her horses. Before she knows it a little come Fay comes to stay with her because the woman taking care of her has died.There are many trouble and upheavals during this book involving many different sets of people. Liked the scenery because it is so descriptive from the daybreak to the full sun and at dusk-the purple sage is always being described.Love how they band together and make a run for it. Learned so much about this area-even gold! Great Book.
    • 3/5
      In several instances the characters act in an overly theatrical fashion that made me think of the exaggerated affect of characters in silent movies. Relatedly, there are also some plot devices that are cloying, going overboard playing on the reader's sympathies. There are a few undeveloped characters that are bumped off like the expendable crew on Star Trek. Who were they? Some of the scenes went on long after they had served their purpose.In spite of all these problems there was a strong plot line that maintained my interest. In addition, the main character's struggle to break free from the dysfunctional obedience of a stern religious upbringing was interesting. I also liked the description of the Utah landscape.
    • 2/5
      Stilted syntax, stereotypical characters, repetitive landscape descriptions.
    • 3/5
      For all its fame as a western novel, this is really a love story (two, actually) that never quite makes it to being a tragedy.A soap opera in which everyone turns out to be something more than they appear at first, this was a bit of a surprise at first, but I was rooting for the good guys the whole way through. Disturbing bit of writing - two of the main 'western confrontation' scenes, in which the good guys ride to town to confront the bad guys, are told by secondary characters after the fact. Disappointing use of the narrative, to say the least.
    • 3/5
      Vaguely pornographic in its blatant sensuality. A classic pulp Western that pits a religious Mormon woman against a hardened brute of animal magnetism. A ranger falls in love with the apparent ex- of a bad guy - a thunder storm makes him realize he has "a storm of real love" in his own "breast." "...I reckon you'd better call quick on thet God who reveals himself to you on earth, because He won't be visitin' the place you're goin to!"
    • 3/5
      This book sold 1 million copies in 1912 at the height of an anti-Mormon fever.Today, it seems bigoted and bombastic. However, the descriptions of Southern Utah mesa country and feats of horsemanship are great.
    • 5/5
      We meet Lassiter and Jane Withersteen, Burn Vinters and, eventually, Elizabeth Ern.We discover Surprise Valley where Lassiter and Jane finally escape forever. It is a story of rustlers and Mormons. Never politically correct, Grey portrays the Mormons as evil and depraved oppressors of their women. Lassiter is the gunslinger who kills them. Withersteen is the devout Mormon woman whose indomitable spirit will not allow her to give herself to Tull, the Mormon leader. Her intransigence leads to a showdown in which she must lose all - except for the appearance of Lassiter, who saves her. Grey's beautiful descriptions of the the sage-covered land and the men of action who inhabit her are a joy to read.
    • 3/5
      All a bit silly, really. It may have invented a genre, but it's still just full of cartoons: hardened cowboys, flouncy fainting women and inexplicably wicked villains. The plot is driven along largely by coincidence, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Still fun.
    • 5/5
      Zane Grey first published this Western novel back in 1912, and it has become the standard by which others are measured. I don't know that it would survive a politically correct editor today, but it remains a great and exciting read, with John Wayne-type good guys, some really sinister bad guys wrapped in religious privilege, and a strong and godly young woman as the protagonist.Jane Withersteen has inherited a vast ranch with huge herds of cattle from her Mormon pioneer father. She is successfully managing the ranch and her employees as well as helping poor families wherever she sees a need. But the Mormon elder who has been courting her determines to break her financially when she rejects his offer to become one of his several wives.Jane's help comes from some Gentile (non Mormon) Cowboys who are not intimidated by the Mormon leaders, though even they may not be able to overcome the many wiles of the Mormon leadership, which holds strong spiritual and psychological authority over the Mormon families who make up the community as a whole.Greg's descriptions of the wild and rugged plains, high cliffs and deep valleys of Utah transport the reader back so effectively that one can almost smell the sage, feel the speed and power of the horses they ride, and the raw fear and excitement engendered by stampeding cattle. Oh, and there is a love story or two as well to enrich the adventure. Thoroughly enjoyed it and think you will too!
    • 3/5
      Lots of Mormon bashing in this. I wish that the heroine Jane was a more realistic character. Her attempts to "save" the various men were annoying and after declaring that she would do anything to get the child Fay back, including marrying the despicable Tull, she then proceeds to agree to fly with Lattimore without a word about Fay!
    • 2/5
      This is this month's selection of one of my book discussion groups, nominated with some insistence by our lone male member. The only Westerns I'd ever read are Appaloosa, Resolution, and Lonesome Dove. Riders of the Purple Sage, written in 1912, is one of the first of the genre and that makes it of historical interest, but I found the book awfully hard going, primarily because it was written in 1912, and the language used for novels those days was atrocious. More than half of the writing is description of the surroundings ("The West," with all its buttes and canons as they were spelled then) which, as evidenced by other reviews of this book, was appreciated by folks who like that kind of thing, but I do not. And am I right in saying "Riders" is the term for people we now call "Cowboys"? The plot isn't bad; it reminds me a little of a romance novel written from the male point of view, or what I think a romance novel written by a man would be like (I don't read romance novels either). I was surprised at the Mormon element -- boy, I bet the Mormons hated Zane Grey! I kept imagining what the book would be like If the same plot were used by a current, talented novelist....I'd want to read THAT book.
    • 3/5
      Some good stuff, some clunky stuff, some predictable twists, some surprises.
    • 4/5
      good book a few point caought my attention but was a little boring to me
    • 5/5
      A while ago I received a copy of the Oxford World’s Classics catalogue inviting me to ask for any books I’d like to review on my blog. Where to start! I could have chosen hundreds, but one in particular leapt out at me from a genre I’d never read before.The evocative title has a lot to do with it (and there’s a band called New Riders of the Purple Sage). I grew up with Westerns – The Virginian, Alias Smith & Jones and The High Chapparal on TV, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood on film. Having worked in a library for my Saturday job in the late 1970s, I had heard of Zane Grey, Louis Lamour, JT Edson and others – they were quite popular then, so the author’s distinctive name did ring a bell. Indeed, I’ve enjoyed modern novels in a similar vein too – Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy was superb. Could this book, one of the originals in the genre, hold its own against all the above?Pearl Zane Grey (his real name) was born in Ohio in 1872. He won a baseball scholarship to Penn where he studied dentistry – but he always wanted to become a writer. He was a bit of a lad too, and would often disappear off hunting, fishing or visiting old girlfriends! However, with his wife’s help, he developed his writing career. Inspired by another classic western novel The Virginian by Owen Wister, Riders as I’ll call it for short, was Grey’s greatest novel; published in 1912 it was fairly early in his long career which made him a millionaire.The first few paragraphs set the scene beautifully…"A sharp clip-clop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage.Jane Withersteen gazed down the wide purple slope with dreamy and troubled eyes. A rider had just left her and it was his message that held her thoughtful and almost sad, awaiting the churchmen who were coming to resent and attack her right to befriend a Gentile.She wondered if the unrest and strife that had lately come to Cottonwoods was to involve her. And then she sighed, remembering that her father had founded this remotest border settlement of southern Utah and that he had left it to her. She owned all the ground and many of the cottages. Withersteen House was hers, and the great ranch, with its thousands of cattle, and swiftest horses of the sage. To her belonged Amber Spring, the water which gave verdure and beauty to the village and made living possible on that wild purple upland waste. She could not escape being involved by whatever befell Cottonwoods."That was enough to totally transport me into this frontier world – after a mere few pages I was totally hooked. You can see the landscape with its sagebrush, and coppery red canyons in the distance. What was particularly surprising, is that the main character is a woman – a strong one at that; but also that even in the frontier villages of the wild west there is intolerance – here between the Mormons and the Gentiles.Jane, being an heiress, is under immense pressure to wed the Mormon preacher, and he and his men don’t like the friendship she has with Bern Venters. They drive Venters out of town so to speak, but Jane is saved from enforced marriage by the arrival of the gunman Lassiter who stays to help, and has a quest of his own. The Mormons plan a war of attrition on Jane – their women spy on her, their men stop working for her, and one of her herds of cattle is rustled. Jane struggles with her religion, finding it hard to see evil, and always wanting to look after her folk, but it’s not until she adopts an orphan child of one of her tenants that her eyes are opened and she lets herself find true love. Meanwhile Venters who is hiding in the canyons, discovers the rustlers base of operations, and shoots one of them known as the Masked Rider – the identity of whom is another story.I won’t tell you any more of the plot to save spoiling it, but this novel has a bit of everything you could expect from a Western – cowboys, horses, rustlers, preachers, girls, ranches, cattle, gunfights, horse chases, kidnapping, and more, plus that beautiful landscape. If my initial surprise was over the shock of religion playing such a crucial part, a more pleasant one was due to the degree of romance in what was traditionally a ‘man’s novel’ – well every cowboy needs his girl, (at least until Brokeback Mountain - another truly fine Western movie). The characterisation was strong throughout and particularly interesting was that we got to see the inner life of Jane, Lassiter and Venter – their thoughts, their hopes, fears and desires. It’s not action all the way through, there’s also an appreciation of a civilised life lived on the edge.I think you can tell I was rather besotted by this book – loved it!
    • 4/5
      Great story. I immediately downloaded the sequel because I wanted to know more about what happened to Jane and Lassiter and Bess and Venters ... and the horses. Good storytelling and lovely descriptive passages. Maybe some of the characters were a little stock, but it didn't keep you from caring about them.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. It started the Western genre. Wholly believable. The terrain is a significant character. It also reflects the popular opinion of Mormonism at the time. They were not the innocent practitioners that they appear to be today.

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    Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey

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