Macmillan Co., NY, 1922. Brick red cloth, paper labels front & spine, black letters. Spine bumping, hd & ft, corners. Spine label has darkened. Various small blemishes to both paper labels. A little foxing on both endpapers. Tightly bound. 441 pages.
By the author of 'The Virginian'. Wister is credited by many as being the 'father of Western fiction'. Harvard educated, in his life Wister was friends with both Teddy Roosevelt and Frederick Remington. He died in 1938.
Born on July 14, 1860, in the northwestern part of Philadelphia to a wealthy physician, Wister was educated at Harvard, and in his life was friends with both Teddy Roosevelt and Frederick Remington.
He began his literary work in 1891. Wister had spent several summers out in the American West, making his first trip to Wyoming in 1885. Like his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. On an 1893 visit to Yellowstone, Wister met the western artist Frederic Remington; who remained
a lifelong friend.
When he started writing, he naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. Wister's most famous work remains the 1902 novel The Virginian, the loosely constructed story of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War, and taking the side of the large land owners. This is widely regarded as being the first cowboy novel and was reprinted fourteen times in eight months. The book was written in the library of The Philadelphia Club, where Wister was a member, and is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1904, Wister collaborated with Kirke La Shelle on a successful stage adaptation of The Virginian that featured Dustin Farnum in the title role. Farnum reprised the role ten years later, in Cecil B. DeMille's film adaptation of the play.
Wister went on to a distinguished career as a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and short-story writer.
In 1938, he died at his home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, but is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery, in Philadelphia.
