The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by
Owen Wister was one of the first mass-market bestsellers. The 1902 novel
received immediate critical acclaim and was hugely popular, eventually spawning
five films, a successful play, and a television series. An instant success, it
sold over 20 thousand copies in the first month, an astonishing number for the
time. It went on to sell over 200,000 thousand copies in the first year, and
over a million and a half prior to Wister's death. This Western classic has
never been out of print. (You can read my review, "The Virginian, A Classic Western Revisited" at Ezine Articles.)
The Virginian
inspired hundreds of stories about the Old West—including the Steve Dancy Tales. After reading The Virginian, I thought it would make an
interesting story if the Easterner was the protagonist rather than the
narrator. I always enjoyed fish-out-of-water stories.
The Virginian is
credited with inventing the literary Western, and many people are familiar with
the book. Less is generally known about Owen Wister. In 2002, Harvard Magazine published a short biography
of Wister: oddly titled "Owen Wister, Brief life of a Western mythmaker:1860-1938." (By my math he lived to be 78 years old.) Thousands of Westerns have
been written, but The Virginian set the benchmark for excellence in the genre.
