The Virginian (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

By Owen Wister and John G. Cawelti

The Virginian, by Owen Wister, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the readers viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each readers understanding of these enduring works.

The western is one of America’s most important and influential contributions to world culture. And it was Owen Wister’s The Virginian, first published in 1902, that created the familiar archetypes of character, setting, and action that still dominate western fiction and film.  

The Virginians characters include: The hero, tall, taciturn, and unflappable, confident in his skills, careful of his honor, mysterious in his background; the heroine, the “schoolmarm from the East,” dedicated to civilizing the untamed town, but willing to adapt to its ways—up to a point; and the villain, who is a liar, a thief, a killer, and worst of all, a coward beneath his bluster. Its setting—the lonely small town in the midst of the vast, empty, dangerous but overwhelmingly beautiful landscape—plays so crucial a role that it may be regarded as one of the primary characters. And its action—the cattle roundup, the capture of the rustlers, the agonizing moral choices demanded by “western justice,” and the climactic shoot-out between hero and villain—shaped the plots of the thousands of books and movies that followed.

John G. Cawelti has published ten books, including Apostles of the Self-Made Man, Adventure, Mystery and Romance, The Spy Story, Leon Forrest: Introductions and Interpretations, and The Six-Gun Mystique Sequel. He has also published about seventy essays in the fields of American literature, cultural history, and popular culture, and has made oral presentations at more than one hundred universities and scholarly conferences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
• Release date: Jun 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411433434

Owen Wister

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 The Virginian and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant.

Book preview

—1—

ENTER THE MAN

SOME NOTABLE SIGHT WAS drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was. I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughing men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging, huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time to watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine might take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station platform of Medicine Bow.¹ We were also six hours late, and starving for entertainment. The pony in the corral was wise, and rapid of limb. Have you seen a skilful boxer watch his antagonist with a quiet, incessant eye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took the rope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; or he might affect earnest conversation with a bystander; it was bootless.b The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal was thoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed upon the dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse expression made the matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he was already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded in that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next he had slid in a flash among his brothers, and the whole of them like a school of playful fish whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and (I take it) roaring with laughter. Through the window-glass of our Pullman the thud of their mischievous hoofs reached us, and the strong, humorous curses of the cow-boys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of the corral, looking on. For he now climbed down with the undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appeared to hold the rope down low, by his leg. But like a sudden snake I saw the noose go out its length and fall true; and the thing was done. As the captured pony walked in with a sweet, church-door expression, our train moved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, That man knows his business.

But the passenger’s dissertation upon roping I was obliged to lose, for Medicine Bow was my station. I bade my fellow-travellers good-by, and descended, a stranger, into the great cattle land. And herein less than ten minutes I learned news which made me feel a stranger indeed.

My baggage was lost; it had not come on my train; it was adrift somewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me. And by way of comfort, the baggage-man remarked that passengers often got astray from their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them after a while. Having offered me this encouragement, he turned whistling to his affairs and left me planted in the baggage-room at Medicine Bow. I stood deserted among crates and boxes, blankly holding my check, furious and forlorn. I stared out through the door at the sky and the plains; but I did not see the antelope shining among the sage-brush, nor the great sunset light of Wyoming. Annoyance blinded my eyes to all things save my grievance: I saw only a lost trunk. And I was muttering half aloud, What a forsaken hole this is! when suddenly from outside on the platform came a slow voice:—

"Off to get married again? Oh, don’t!"

The voice was Southern and gentle and drawling; and a second voice came in immediate answer, cracked and querulous:—

It ain’t again. Who says it’s again? Who told you, anyway?

And the first voice responded caressingly:—

Why, your Sunday clothes told me, Uncle Hughey. They are speakin’ mighty loud o’ nuptials.

You don’t worry me! snapped Uncle Hughey, with shrill heat.

And the other gently continued, Ain’t them gloves the same yu’ wore to your last weddin’?

You don’t worry me! You don’t worry me! now screamed Uncle Hughey.

Already I had forgotten my trunk; care had left me; I was aware of the sunset, and had no desire but for more of this conversation. For it resembled none that I had heard in my life so far. I stepped to the door and looked out upon the station platform.

Lounging there at ease against the wall was a slim young giant, more beautiful than pictures. His broad, soft hat was pushed back; a loose-knotted, dull-scarlet handkerchief sagged from his throat, and one casual thumb was hooked in the cartridge-belt that slanted across his hips. He had plainly come many miles from somewhere across the vast horizon, as the dust upon him showed. His boots were white with it. His overalls were gray with it. The weather-beaten bloom of his face shone through it duskily, as the ripe peaches look upon their trees in a dry season. But no dinginess of travel or shabbiness of attire could tarnish the splendor that radiated from his youth and strength. The old man upon whose temper his remarks were doing such deadly work was combed and curried to a finish, a bridegroom swept and garnished; but alas for age! Had I been the bride, I should have taken the giant, dust and all.

He had by no means done with the old man.

Why, yu’ve hung weddin’ gyarments on every limb! he now drawled, with admiration. Who is the lucky lady this trip?

The old man seemed to vibrate. Tell you there ain’t been no other! Call me a Mormon, would you?²

Why, that-

Call me a Mormon? Then name some of my wives. Name two. Name one. Dare you!

"—that Laramiec wido’ promised you—"

Shucks!

—only her docter suddenly ordered Southern climate and—

Shucks! You’re a false alarm.

"—so nothing but her lungs came between you. And next you’d most got united with Cattle Kate,³ only—"

Tell you you’re a false alarm!

—only she got hung.

Where’s the wives in all this? Show the wives! Come now!

"That corn-fed biscuit-shooterd at Rawlinse yu’ gave the canary—"

Never married her. Never did marry—

But yu’ come so near, uncle! She was the one left yu’ that letter explaining how she’d got married to a young cyard-player the very day before her ceremony with you was due, and—

Oh, you’re nothing; you’re a kid; you don’t amount to—

—and how she’d never, never forgot to feed the canary.

This country’s getting full of kids, stated the old man, witheringly. It’s doomed. This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And he blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor continued with a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle solicitude:—

How is the health of that unfortunate—

That’s right! Pour your insults! Pour ‘em on a sick, afflicted woman! The eyes blinked with combative relish.

Insults? Oh, no, Uncle Hughey!

That’s all right! Insults goes!

Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her mem’ry. Las’ time I heard, they told me she’d got it pretty near all back. Remembered her father, and her mother, and her sisters and brothers, and her friends, and her happy childhood, and all her doin’s except only your face. The boys was bettin’ she’d get that far too, give her time. But I reckon afteh such a turrable sickness as she had, that would be expectin’ most too much.

At this Uncle Hughey jerked out a small parcel. Shows how much you know! he cackled. There! See that! That’s my ring she sent me back, being too unstrung for marriage. So she don’t remember me, don’t she? Ha-ha! Always said you were a false alarm.

The Southerner put more anxiety into his tone. And so you’re a-takin’ the ring right on to the next one! he exclaimed. Oh, don’t go to get married again, Uncle Hughey! What’s the use o’ being married?

What’s the use? echoed the bridegroom, with scorn. Hm! When you grow up you’ll think different.

Course I expect to think different when my age is different. I’m havin’ the thoughts proper to twenty-four, and you’re havin’ the thoughts proper to sixty.

Fifty! shrieked Uncle Hughey, jumping in the air.

The Southerner took a tone of self-reproach. Now, how could I forget you was fifty, he murmured, when you have been telling it to the boys so careful for the last ten years!

Have you ever seen a cockatoo—the white kind with the top-knot—enraged by insult? The bird erects every available feather upon its person. So did Uncle Hughey seem to swell, clothes, mustache, and woolly white beard; and without further speech he took himself on board the East-bound train, which now arrived from its siding in time to deliver him.

Yet this was not why he had not gone away before. At any time he could have escaped into the baggage-room or withdrawn to a dignified distance until his train should come up. But the old man had evidently got a sort of joy from this teasing. He had reached that inevitable age when we are tickled to be linked with affairs of gallantry, no matter how.

With him now the East-bound departed slowly into that distance whence I had come. I stared after it as it went its way to the far shores of civilization. It grew small in the unending gulf of space, until all sign of its presence was gone save a faint skein of smoke against the evening sky. And now my lost trunk came back into my thoughts, and Medicine Bow seemed a lonely spot. A sort of ship had left me marooned in a foreign ocean; the Pullman was comfortably steaming home to port, while I—how was I to find Judge Henry’s ranch? Where in this unfeatured wilderness was Sunk Creek? No creek or any water at all flowed here that I could perceive. My host had written he should meet me at the station and drive me to his ranch. This was all that I knew. He was not here. The baggage-man had not seen him lately. The ranch was almost certain to be too far to walk to, to-night. My trunk—I discovered myself still staring dolefully after the vanished East-bound; and at the same instant I became aware that the tall man was looking gravely at me,—as gravely as he had looked at Uncle Hughey throughout their remarkable conversation.

To see his eye thus fixing me and his thumb still hooked in his cartridge-belt, certain tales of travellers from these parts forced themselves disquietingly into my recollection. Now that Uncle Hughey was gone, was I to take his place and be, for instance, invited to dance on the platform to the music of shots nicely aimed?

I reckon I am looking for you, seh, the tall man now observed.

—2—

WHEN YOU CALL ME THAT, SMILE!

WE CANNOT SEE OURSELVES as others see us, or I should know what appearance I cut at hearing this from the tall man. I said nothing, feeling uncertain.

I reckon I am looking for you, seh, he repeated politely.

I am looking for Judge Henry, I now replied.

He walked toward me, and I saw that in inches he was not a giant. He was not more than six feet. It was Uncle Hughey that had made him seem to tower. But in his eye, in his face, in his step, in the whole man, there dominated a something potent to be felt, I should think, by man or woman.

The Judge sent me afteh you, seh, he now explained, in his civil Southern voice; and he handed me a letter from my host. Had I not witnessed his facetious performances with Uncle Hughey, I should have judged him wholly ungifted with such powers. There was nothing external about him but what seemed the signs of a nature as grave as you could meet. But I had witnessed; and therefore supposing that I knew him in spite of his appearance, that I was, so to speak, in his secret and could give him a sort of wink, I adopted at once a method of easiness. It was so pleasant to be easy with a large stranger who instead of shooting at your heels had very civilly handed you a letter.

"You’re from old Virginia,¹ I take it?" I began.

He answered slowly, Then you have taken it correct, seh.

A slight chill passed over my easiness, but I went cheerily on with a further inquiry. Find many oddities out here like Uncle Hughey?

Yes, seh, there is a right smart of oddities around. They come in on every train.

At this point I dropped my method of easiness.

I wish that trunks came on the train, said I. And I told him my predicament.

It was not to be expected that he would be greatly moved at my loss; but he took it with no comment whatever. We’ll wait in town for it, said he, always perfectly civil.

Now, what I had seen of town was, to my newly arrived eyes, altogether horrible. If I could possibly sleep at the Judge’s ranch, I preferred to do so.

Is it too far to drive there to-night? I inquired.

He looked at me in a puzzled manner.

For this valise, I explained, contains all that I immediately need; in fact, I could do without my trunk for a day or two, if it is not convenient to send. So if we could arrive there not too late by starting at once— I paused.

It’s two hundred and sixty-three miles, said the Virginian.

To my loud ejaculation he made no answer, but surveyed me a moment longer, and then said, Supper will be about ready now. He took my valise, and I followed his steps toward the eating-house in silence. I was

Reviews for The Virginian (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

[mkfs-354306 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"Forgive my asking you to use your mind. It is a thing which no novelist should expect of his reader."

For much of this novel, there is certainly no danger there. As a Western ("the first!"), it is quite a slog: the author perhaps set out to do a character study, and ended up writing a courtship novel. Now, a romance certainly plays a part in many Western tales, but when the pinings and longings outnumber the ropings and shootings, there's a bit of a problem.

The tale has an occasional narrator: a Brit touring the American frontier, and progressing from hapless city boy to accomplished (well, at least not so hapless) trailsman. I found the narrator much more interesting than the Virginian, whose character is fixed from the first few pages, and neither disappoints nor surprises. A bit more of what the narrator got up to while off-screen, and a bit less of how good the Virginian was at cattle/personnel/resource management everything, would have been quite welcome.

There is a climactic shootout, of course, and in this scene the book gets full marks. Expertly done, really. The participants both have heavy misgivings, but having made their grievance public, and perhaps run the ol' mouth off after a lunchtime whiskey, they are obligated to a firefight, lest they lose their respective followers due to the appearance of cowardice. There is none of that stand-in-the-street-at-noon nonsense either: each wants to kill the other and not be killed in turn, and it is all gone about quite sensibly.

Not much more to say about it, really - not sure it is worth the time to read, but there is certainly worse fare out there if you're stuck on a plane or at a holiday dinner. One last Wisterism for ya:
In gatherings of more than six there will generally be at least one fool, and this company must have numbered twenty men.

[electrascaife · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This one really surprised me and in the best kind of way. I sheepishly admit that going into this one I assumed I wouldn't like it one bit (I generally don't cotton to westerns), but despite its setting - and the fact that its main character is a cowboy, through and through - well, reader, I loved it. Excellent story, with a nice sprinkling of good side stories, and great characters, too.

[prop2gether · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lost a half star because it took me four attempts to get past the introduction, but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This classic is considered by many to be the first 'Western'. It certainly has most if not all the tropes now considered to be standard for that genre! The hero, whose name we never learn, is a young man of about 24 when the story opens and at that time, he has already been on his own for 10 years and has traveled and worked in most of the West. The descriptions of life in Wyoming in the period after the Civil War (~1870s) was well drawn and the romance between the cowboy and the schoolteacher from Vermont allowed some discussion about the differences between the settled East and the "Wild West". Overall, I liked this book more than I had expected. Even if you think Westerns aren't for you, this one is worth trying.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Originally published in 1902, The Virginian by Own Wister depicts life on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, a classic American novel and considered the first true western ever written. A number of events in this book have become clichés of the western genre. Along with the lynching of cattle thieves and a dramatic shoot-out we also have the original cowboy prototype, a tall, lean, quiet man who speaks with his deeds and has a strong moral code. This is the fellow that all the women admire and the men want to be whether he is telling the villain to “smile when you call me that” or discussing poetry with his school teacher sweetheart.But this is more than a romanticized tale of the west, Wister is also portraying the end of an era. This book is showing the changing of the western frontier. Schools are springing up, women are coming west, the gentling influence of home and family are slowly changing the way things are done. The old “wild” west is giving way to more moderate ways and the time of quick and harsh justice for lawbreakers is coming to an end. I found this a little dated yet still a strong historical story. I was surprised at how much of the book was given over to the romance, which to me was the weak area of the book as it seemed over idealized and rather passionless. I much preferred the love story the author wrote about this place and time in American history for in his colorful descriptions and varied characters one can find the passion that the main characters lacked for each other.

[jimmaclachlan · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I only saw ebook editions of this, although I have an old hardback at home & downloaded the audio book from the library. I read this as a teen, maybe 40 years ago & liked it a lot better. I have a feeling I skimmed through a lot of the first part. Listening to it just got to be a drag.

It's told in a rather odd way by a guy that knows the Virginian, a third person limited, but then it slips into third person omniscient in other places. That didn't harm the story at all, though. It was also well read.

What really got to me is that it just dragged on with the romance & I didn't find the dance of any real interest. The subtle word play in the conversations didn't delight me, either.

As I recall, the story does get better, but it's just not doing it for me in this format, so after several hours, I'm moving on to another book.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book that recreates the Wild West as we've come to know it, (which probably means not too realistic). But I enjoyed it immensely.

[homeschoolbookreview · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“The Virginian’s pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: ‘When you call me that, smile.’ And he looked at Trampas across the table.” This novel, the first true western that paved the way for other famous authors such as Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour, covers a span of five years and chronicles the acquaintance of the unnamed author/narrator with a strong, silent stranger known only as “The Virginian,” a young man in his twenties who works on Judge Henry’s Shiloh Ranch at Sunk Creek in the Wyoming territory. The account begins when the narrator arrives in Medicine Bow, WY, around 1886, to visit Judge Henry and the Virginian is sent to escort him to Shiloh. During the succeeding years, the Virginian, who was born in old Virginia but had left home at age fourteen and come west, woos the pretty Miss Molly Stark Wood, who comes from Bennington, VT, to be the school teacher at Bear Creek, WY; is made foreman at Shiloh Ranch; and must deal with an ongoing enemy named Trampas, a roving cowboy who works for a while at Shiloh then turns to rustling. Will the Virginian win Miss Wood’s affection? What will happen to Trampas? When I was young and still living at home, I remember seeing a television show also entitled The Virginian (1962-1971), based on characters from this novel. It starred James Drury as the Virginian, Doug McClure as Trampas, and Lee J. Cobb as the Judge. However, the television series bore little resemblance to the plot of the book. The Virginian is an interesting story in which several subplots develop over time. There are numerous references to smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, gambling, and dancing. In addition to several instances in which “curses,” “oaths,” and “profanities” are mentioned, the “d” and “h” words occur a few times and the Lord’s name is occasionally taken in vain. The phrase “son of a -----“ is used as quoted (not spelled out). In fact, this is what Trampas had called the Virginian when the latter responded, “When you call me that, smile.” The nearly equivalent term “ba*t*ard” is found once (completely spelled out). Nathaniel Bluedorn recommended the book in Hand that Rocks the Cradle: 400 Classic Books for Children, but I would urge great caution with younger children unless done as a read aloud where the offending language could be easily edited out. Otherwise, it does present a good, balanced viewpoint of what young manhood should be, with both toughness when needed and gentleness when required.

[delphica · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first piece of news is that this does not take place in Virginia. (I NEVER SAW THE MOVIES OR THE TV SHOW!) It takes place in Wyoming. Considered by some to be the first Western (or so the internet tells me), this is a series of related stories about the Virginian of the title, who is apparently so impressively manly that the narrator never mentions his name, he is always "the Virginian" doing this or that, or saying whatever. The manly stuff he does involves being a cowboy, catching cattle thieves, and courting the local school marm in a very romantic fashion (and sweet, making allowances for the culture of whenever this takes place, which I think is about 1880).Obviously some of it is a little dated, but it doesn't take away from the story. A little more challenging is that it jumps right in with a lot of dialogue written out in, I guess, "cowpoke dialect" and it is a little grating to keep having to parse that out, but it's used to set the scene initially and then in following episodes, isn't so front and center.

[fuzzi_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a delightful book! I hesitate to call it a 'western', per se, but an entertaining story about people in the western areas of the USA back in the late 1800s. The book has some drama and action, but is mainly about people and situations, without a lot of description of cows and cowboys and gunfights. There is humor and sadness, human emotions of all types well described within its pages.This book is going back on the shelf to be read again, and is being classified as a 'favorite'.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was the prototype Western, the one that spawned Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, Jack Schaefer and even our image of John Wayne. In that sense, the book is at a disadvantage. We've had over a century of follow-ons that have turned many of the themes into clichés: the tall, laconic cowboy; the beautiful young school marm; the villainous rustler.If you can't set those aside, this isn't a book for you...just pass it by. On the other hand, if you can put yourself in mindset where it's 1902 and this is a departure from the dime store novellas and novelettes that are the only Westerns to date, this is worth a read. Wister's portrayal of the original man with no name gives us a thinking character, someone who is more evocative of the intelligent courage and emotional depth of Gary Cooper in High Noon than the shoot-'em-up John Wayne in something like Big Jake. The story is nominally told through the eyes of an inexperienced young man who has come west to visit a friend. This device allows Wister to contrast the genteel society of the East with the wilder existence of Wyoming. I say nominally because, once the comparisons are made, we get the Virginian's story even when the narrator is not present. The result kept me captivated. You know the guy is going to win the struggle with the villain. You know the guy is going to get the girl. And yet, it doesn't matter because the journey there, not the ending, is what's good about this story. In a sense, it's travel literature, a book written by someone who had actually seen the Old West and loved it.On the Gary Cooper front: it's funny that, as I finished the book, I thought, "sounds like a Gary Cooper role." It turns out that it was: 1929 with Victor Fleming directing—somehow I've missed that all my life. I'll have to find a copy.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book, published in 1902, has been hailed as the first Western. The Virginian of the novel is the forefather of Hondo and Shane and every other strong but silent cowboy found in films. Here's a snippet:The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: "When you call me that, SMILE." And he looked at Trampas across the table.There is some amusement in finding out where all those elements of the Western came from--the poker game that leads to a quick draw, the beautiful school marm and more. However, despite its venerable age, I can't call this a classic. True classics live because they have rounded characters who feel real, male and female both, instead of being filled with stereotypes. And they endure because of strong prose styles. This novel can boast neither. This is the kind of book that indicates obscenities with blanks but allows racial epithets to be casually flung about. It's told by an unnamed first person narrator about the unnamed title protagonist, at times drifting into a kind of third person as events are narrated the point of view character never witnessed. Mark Twain this ain't.There is some some smile-worthy humor and a fine turn of phrase here and there, but overall this reads like a rather creaky, if bloated, dime store novel. Comparing this to the other books on the Western recommendation list I was working through, I found this a more entertaining read than Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage or Louis L'Amour's Hondo, but not as well-written as Elmer Kelton's Many a River or Jack Schaefer's Shane. And the book certainly isn't up to the gold standard of novels like The Big Sky, Little Big Man, True Grit or The Ox-Bow Incident.

[eduscapes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wister, Owen (1902). The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains.The story begins with an 'easterner' arriving on the train in Medicine Bow, WY to encounter a tall, quiet cowboy originally from Virginia. The tale continues over the next five years and weaves together the lives of the greenhorn, the unnamed cowboy, a schoolmarm from Vermont, and a villainous cowboy named Trampas. Shortly the Virginian is made ranch foreman and begins to court the schoolmarm, Molly Starkwood. His life is marred by continued encounters and conflict with Trampas, the cowhand who later turns to rustling.The author pieced together a string of short stories to create a historical novel - - a western that was one of the first to feature real-life characters rather than mythical figures. The Virginian is a must read for those interested in identifying and understanding the roots of western literature and the portrayal of the American cowboy. lj (Apr 2011)

[steve6clason · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The original telling of that conflict between love and honor, set in America's West during the short reign of the cowboy--turned into a template by lesser writers and fed to us in copy after copy. This beats all the copies.It's not faultless literature: the narrative vioce isn't consistent, there's some superfluous description, and a peculiar exposition on something like situational ethics, but the characters are superb and the conflicts deep and familiar. None of that gets in the way of the story, though, and it's a great story.

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Substance: Basically a romance, but at least the characters learn something about each other's character after the initial bout of love-at-first-sight (a feature conspicuously missing from the contemporary novels I have read lately). The hero (never named) is something of a contradiction inpersonality: taciturn but turns neat practical jokes; upright but not averse to lynching horse thieves. The Heroine is stalwart but unused to the rugged west, however, she learns to love it as well as her man, after she saves his life.Style: Mostly narrated by an observer, with later omnisicent-narrator passages as the Tenderfoot bows out of the story. Almost a Boswellian effect. Not as dry as I feared, but overdoes the dialect (a feature of books of this era).

[drymartini_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of my favorite books. Written in the early years of the Twentieth Century, it's in a class by itself, full of Western anecdotes, real Western atmosphere from the short era of the cowboy, and a love story that will make you laugh, cry and wring your heart. Don't judge this book by the movie or TV shows that used it's title, they bore not the slightest resemblance to the book.

[realisttheorist · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Virginian is cow-puncher living in Wyoming. The melodrama is scant, and the drama is not overly tense. The theme is universal, in portraying the life of a good man. The scope of the theme is narrow. The Virginian is not taking on the world; he's simply meeting the events of his own life with honesty, courage and creativity. This is a relaxed "western" novel, that brought a smile to my face.

[terpsichoreus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 thought in this work which made me question how American it could be.Of course, the author spent some schooling-time in Europe, and holds a dear enough place for Austen and Shakespeare not to descend into the self-important drear which has so long left American Literature moth-eaten.However, it has also the rawness and adventure which we have been lead to expect from this frontier land. Both the dime-stores and megaplexes have profited so much from this sense of adventure that red-plumed explosions have become ho-hum. There is then a certain irony in the fact that in opening this book, I was shocked and surprised by its emotion more than I have been by an exploding car or knife-weilding killer. Perhaps that says something in and of itself about the repetetive nature of our arts: that we will make something uninteresting two times instead of something interesting once.I could not resist the gentle humor nor the deep-felt influence of both the high British and the Russian realists in this book, and found it surprised me not in the least because it took a road other than either the expected or the contrary.Though the author sometimes falls to that most grievous of sins: telling instead of showing, one gets the impression that this is because he knows his limits and would spare us the blunder of exceeding them. One also sometimes gets the sense of his desire to fondly remember this era, and to Romanticize it, but if that was ever a crime of Literature, it was only laid upon those we didn't like. I like The Virginian, and not the least of which because the author is humble enough to excuse himself from his crimes before making me do it for him. Too many modern books are started by the authors but finished by the readers.

[schmerguls · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

1088 The Virginian, by Owen Wister (read 25 Oct 1970) For reasons not clear to me I read this book. Much of it I had to force myself to read, yet it got better. It is so an idyll--unbelievably so. The ending had me in tears! It is so easy to se it never was, but so nice to believe. It was well to read, and memorable.

[nebutron_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Should have read this long ago when I was robbing trains in the Santa Cruz Mountains (no lie). Obviously the proto-Western. Wister sets the tone for all future Western romances. Amazing insight into a pivotal time in Western American history, in this case the gradual decline of the culture of the open range and the settling of the West. Very entertaining and enlightening.

[uvula_fr_b4 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Virginian is a "fix-up" (i.e., a novel cobbled together from previously published short stories with some new material) first published in 1902 that retains a very disjointed, episodic feel. Given that Wister was a good friend of Theodore Roosevelt (and the two men were both friends of Rudyard Kipling), it might be expected that Wister's socio-political weltanschauung will be problematic at best for many modern readers (including this one); such expectations are met and exceeded in the pages of his one enduring novel, from the sneering misogynism (Molly Wood, the unnamed Virginian's love interest, is described as "his" before they even court; after they commence their courtship, Wister refers to the Virginian as "her lord") to the neo-feudal, anti-democratic exceptionalism that would make Ayn Rand proud, The Virginian was often difficult for this reporter to read without scraping the enamel off his teeth. That said, anyone even remotely interested in the western genre (even as manifested in "spaghetti westerns" or Sam Peckinpah films) owes it to himself to read The Virginian at least once; and there are occasional bursts of effective writing, particularly when the Virginian twits a boorish travelling preacher into departing the ranch far earlier than he'd intended (Chapter XXI: "In a State of Sin," far and away the funniest episode of the book), the lynch episode which is Wister's commentary on the so-called "Johnson County War" (Chapter XXXI: "The Cottonwoods" and Chapter XXXII: "Superstition Trail"), and, yes, the showdown between the Virginian and Trampas (Chapter XXXV: "With Malice Aforethought"), which would serve as the bible for the classic 1952 movie High Noon. Readers of a certain mindset may well derive some amusement from the not-so-subtle homoeroticism that permeates The Virginian; "What did you think those saddles and boots was about?," indeed.Richard Slotkin in his Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier Nation in Twentieth-Century America (1992) addresses many of my misgivings about The Virginian, particularly in Chapter 5: "Aristocracy of Violence: Virility, Vigilante Politics, and Red-blooded Fiction, 1895-1910" (subsection: "The Virginian (1902) and the Myth of the Vigilante"). However, Jess Nevins in his The Encylopedia of Fantastic Victoriana regards The Virginian with much more favor than Slotkin (or this reader...) does.