Description
Book SynopsisDetails the life of the man who created the popular image of the cowboy that dominated American culture from the early 1900s to the 1960s
Trade Review“No previous discussions of Wister have been so probing or revealing as this account of the author’s humanness. . . . [This is] an authoritative life-story of Owen Wister, a central figure in understanding the important role of the West in American culture.”—Richard W. Etulain,
Pacific Historical Review“An excellent biography of the most complex of American eccentrics, who also invented the Western cowboy novel.”—
National Review“This is a first-rate biography. . . . Payne has written a sensitive, candid, balanced life of Owen Wister that is likely to remain the standard study of the writer for some time to come.”—Edwin R. Bingham,
Journal of American History “Darwin Payne is to be congratulated on this fresh, thorough, and fair-minded study of Owen Wister.”—Howard R. Lamar,
Journal of the Southwest "Gracefully written and exhaustively researched."—
ChoiceTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction
Part OneTHE MUSICAL PRODIGYI. A Gentleman Born (1860-1878)II. Harvard, Class of '82 (1878-1882)III. The European Judgment (1882-1883)IV. A Boston Stopover (1883-1885)V. Discovery (1885)
Part TwoTHE WESTERN STORYTELLERVI. An Uncertain Scholar (1885-1888)VII. Western Storyteller (1889-1892)VIII. In Search of Material (1892-1895)IX. Fame and Marriage (1895-1898)X. Overnight Celebrity (1899-1902)XI. "The Virginian" on Broadway (1903-1904)XII. A Novel of Manners (1904-1906)
Part ThreeTHE CURMUDGEONXIII. In the Public Arena (1907-1908)XIV. Tribulations (1909-1914)XV. The Curmudgeon Unveiled (1914-1923)XVI. Entanglements (1923-1938)NotesIndex