The Virginian was a pioneering Wild West (see also Frontier and Western movie) novel by the American author Owen Wister, published in 1902.

Ostensibly a love story, the novel really revolves around a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War in 1890's Wyoming. The real Johnson County War was a dispute between large ranchers and smaller operators over land use, in which the large ranchers hired assassins and bands of mercenaries to murder their economic competitors, whom they portrayed "cattle rustlers," with the active help of local and federal Republican-party politicians. (Wister was a friend of Republican president Theodore Roosevelt.) The novel takes the side of the large ranchers, and depicts the lynchings as frontier justice, meted out by the protagonist, who is a member of a natural aristocracy among men; this theme of the wilderness as a magnifying glass for humans' inherent qualities is also found in other fiction of the period, such as Tarzan of the Apes. In a central episode, the protagonist participates in the lynching of an admitted cattle thief, who had been his close friend. The lynching is represented as a necessary response to the government's corruption and lack of action, but the protagonist feels it to be a horrible duty. He is especially stricken by the bravery with which the thief faces his fate, and the heavy burden it places on his heart forms the emotional core of the story.

Structurally, the story is less a novel than an anthology of previously published stories about the central character, with, e.g., the point of view shifting from one chapter to the next. The Virginian, both the character and the book are considered to be first of their kind. The character is seen as the first real cowboy character that has set the standard for the cowboy character stereotype. The book is seen as one of the first great western novels about cowboys.

The copyright has long since expired, and it is available on the Internet; see references.

A few famous quotes:

Therefore Trampas spoke. "Your bet, you son-of-a--."

The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: "When you call me that, SMILE." And he looked at Trampas across the table.

Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, ...

External links

1902 novels