Owen Wister (1860–1938) was an American novelist considered the “father” of Western fiction. His The Virginian (1902) helped establish the cowboy as a stock fictional character and a U.S. folk hero and the Western as a legitimate genre of literature.
Born to a wealthy Germantown family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wister studied music at Harvard, wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, and intended to be a composer. Following graduation, Wister traveled to Europe to study music and joined the Paris Conservatoire but returned to Harvard Law School.
Wister was diagnosed with poor health and was prescribed “rest cure” trips to Wyoming and other parts of the West. Inspired by these trips, Wister wrote The Virginian (1902,) the story of an unnamed cowboy who, despite a hardened exterior, displays the “civilized” values of chivalry and honor in the “uncivilized” environment of the West. The novel contains the famous line, “This town ain’t big enough for both of us,” and ends with a dramatic shootout in the street. The Virginian was an immediate bestseller and made Wister a wealthy man. This book was responsible for the romanticized view of the West—the cowboy-dominated American culture from the early 1900s to the 1960s.
Wister’s other books included the novels Lin Mclean (1898) and Lady Baltimore (1906,) many short stories, an opera, three biographies, and several political pieces. He maintained friendships with such prominent American figures as Theodore Roosevelt, William Dean Howells, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James, Frederic Remington, and John Jay Chapman.
Southern Methodist University’s Darwin Payne wrote the biography Owen Wister: Chronicler of the West, Gentleman of the East (1985.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Owen Wister
It was neither preaching nor praying that made a better man of me, but one or two people who believed in me better than I deserved, and I hated to disappoint them.
—Owen Wister
When a man ain’t got no ideas of his own, he’d ought to be kind o’ careful who he borrows ’em from.
—Owen Wister
When you can’t have what you choose, you just choose what you have.
—Owen Wister
Topics: Choice
For out of the eyes of every stranger looks either a friend or an enemy, waiting to be known.
—Owen Wister
When a man is kind to dumb animals, I always say he has got some good in him.
—Owen Wister
Topics: Ideas, Life
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