Table of Contents
From the Pages of The Virginian
I had stepped into a world new to me indeed, and novelties were occurring with scarce any time to get breath between them. As to where I should sleep, I had forgotten that problem altogether in my curiosity. What was the Virginian going to do now? I began to know that the quiet of this man was volcanic.
(page 23)
When you call me that, smile!
(page 33)
For though utterly a man in countenance and in his self-possession and incapacity to be put at a loss, he was still boyishly proud of his wild calling, and wore his leathern chaps and jingled his spurs with obvious pleasure.
(page 61)
Do you call it a manly thing to frighten and distress women because youfor no reason at all? I should never have imagined it could be the act of a person who wears a big pistol and rides a big horse. I should be afraid to go riding with such an immature protector.
(page 103)
Oh, pshaw! When yu cant have what you choose, yu just choose what you have.
(page 115)
What would the Virginian do to Trampas? Would it be another intellectual crushing of him, like the frog story, or would there be something this time more materialsay muscle, or possibly gunpowderin it?
(page 157)
When a man aint got no ideas of his own, said Scipio, hed ought to be kind ocareful who he borrows em from.
(page 199)
Pity this isnt New York, now, where theres a big market for harmless horses. Gee-gees, the children call them.
(page 214)
He had told her that he was coming for his hour soon. From that hour she had decided to escape. She was running away from her own heart. She did not dare to trust herself face to face again with her potent, indomitable lover. She longed for him and therefore she would never see him again.
(page 234)
You must not stay Weakness overcame him, and his eyes closed. She sat ministering to him, and when he roused again, he began anxiously at once: You must not stay. They would get you, too.
(page 241)
Dead men I have seen not a few times, even some lying pale and terrible after violent ends, and the edge of this wears off; but I hope I shall never again have to be in the company with men waiting to be killed.
(page 278)
He says with apparent pride, wrote Sarah, that he has never killed for pleasure or profit. Those are his exact words, and you may guess their dreadful effect upon mother. I congratulate you, my dear, on having chosen a protector so scrupulous.
(page 308)
I am not going to let him shoot me.
(page 339)
Something had changed. He looked everywhere, and feeling it everywhere, wondered what this could be. Then he knew: it was the sun that had gone entirely behind the mountains, and he drew out his pistol.
(page 344)
A Western man is a good thing. And he generally knows that. But he has a heap to learn. And he generally dont know that.
(page 356)
Owen Wister
Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, into a wealthy and distinguished Philadelphia family. His father, a physician, could trace his ancestors arrival in Pennsylvania to several months earlier than that of the states founder, William Penn. Owens maternal grandmother was the famous actress Fanny Kemble. As a boy he attended boarding schools in Switzerland as well as the prestigious St. Pauls School in New Hampshire.
In 1878 Wister enrolled at Harvard University, where against his fathers wishes he majored in classical music. At Harvard he met Theodore Roosevelt, the future U.S. president, and the two became lifelong friends. Wister graduated from Harvard summa cum laude and went to Europe to continue his studies in music and composition. He gave up his dream of a musical career after only a few years, however, and returned to the United States. He worked for a time in an investment banking firm and then, in 1885, enrolled at Harvard Law School.
Before beginning law school Wister, suffering from a nervous disorder, spent the summer on a ranch in Wyoming on the advice of his doctor. He was immediately taken with the country. Over the next decade, despite three years of law school and a brief stint working as a lawyer, he made several more trips to the West, traveling throughout Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. He kept a detailed written account of the landscape and its inhabitants, from cattle rustlers to ranchers, cowboys, and American Indians.
Wister began writing stories about the American West, drawing upon his observations and experiences. His first published stories appeared in Harpers Monthly in 1892. Others followed, and their popularity prompted Wister to abandon the law and devote his full attention to writing. In 1902 he brought together several of his stories, bound them with a cohesive narrative and a love story, and created his first novel, The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains. The novel was an instant best-seller and became a model for the westerns that followed.
Over the next thirty years, Wister continued to write. He produced another novel, Lady Baltimore (which introduced the Lady Baltimore Cake), several volumes of short stories, works of nonfiction (including several conservative political treatises), and childrens books. None of these works, however, achieved the status of his first novel. Owen Wister died on July 21, 1938, in Rhode Island.
The World of Owen Wister and The Virginian
1860 | Owen Wister is born on July 14 in Germantown, Pennsylvania , a suburb of Philadelphia. His father belongs to a prominent, wealthy family with roots in Philadelphia stretching back to the 1700s; his maternal grandmother is the famous actress Fanny Kemble. Abraham Lincoln is elected president. |
1861 | The American Civil War begins. |
1870 | Owen travels to Europe with his family and attends boarding school in Switzerland. |
1873 | The family returns to Philadelphia. Owen is enrolled in St. Pauls School, a prestigious boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. |
1878 | He graduates from St. Pauls School and in the fall enters Harvard University. Novelist Upton Sinclair is born. Gilbert and Sullivans operetta H.M.S. Pinafore opens. |
1880 | Wister meets his classmate and friend, the future president Theodore Roosevelt. |
1882 | Wister graduates summa cum laude from Harvard with a degree in music. A talented pianist, he travels to Europe to study music composition. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 bans Chinese immigration to the United States for ten years. American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson dies. |
1883 | Deciding against a career in music, Wister returns to Boston but soon moves to Philadelphia. He embarks on a career in finance. American scout and showman Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody) opens his Wild West Show. Treasure Island, by Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, is published. |
1885 | Wister spends the summer in Wyoming at the advice of his doctor, hoping to recover from a nervous disorder. He stays at the V. R. Ranch, run by Major Frank Wolcott near Glenrock. Over the next ten years, he will return often to the West; his detailed diary of these travels will serve as source material for his stories. He enrolls in Harvard Law School. Former president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant dies. Novelist Sinclair Lewis is born. |
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