Excerpt from The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains Had you left New York or San Francisco at ten o'clock this morning, by noon the day after to-morrow you could step out at Cheyenne. There you would stand at the heart of the world that is the subject of my picture, yet you would look around you in vain for the reality. It is a van ished world. No journeys, save those which memory can take, will bring you to it now. The mountains are there, far and shining, and the sunlight, and the infinite earth, and the air that seems ...
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Excerpt from The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains Had you left New York or San Francisco at ten o'clock this morning, by noon the day after to-morrow you could step out at Cheyenne. There you would stand at the heart of the world that is the subject of my picture, yet you would look around you in vain for the reality. It is a van ished world. No journeys, save those which memory can take, will bring you to it now. The mountains are there, far and shining, and the sunlight, and the infinite earth, and the air that seems forever the true fountain of youth, - but where is the buffalo, and the wild antelope, and where the horseman with his pasturing thou sands? So like its old self does the sage-brush seem when revisited, that you wait for the horse man to appear. But he will never come again. He rides in his historic yesterday. You will no more see him gallop out of the unchanging silence than you will see Columbus on the unchanging sea come sailing from Palos with his caravels. And yet the horseman is still so near our day that in some chapters of this book, which were published separate at the close of the nineteenth century, the present tense was used. It is true no longer. In those chapters it has been changed, and verbs like is and have now read was and had Time has flowed faster than my ink. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at ... This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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I read somewhere that this book has sold record numbers of copies. It should. There was never written a better Western romance or any other kind of romance.Fooey on Camelot and those posturing Round Table guys with their plumes and flashy scabbords. The Virginian makes them look like woosies.
I fell in love with the Virginian and Molly, the New England school ma'arm whom he courts for three years before she will marry him because she does not want to disgrace her old-line family. Molly is adorable despite her family pride.l
Everything is in here: the cowboys, the roundups, the barbeques with whole steers roasted, the hanging, the shoot-out, the judge and his wonderfyully aristocratic wife, both of whom see how terrific a man the Virginaian is. Mrs. Judges says, "He's too good for her, but he doesn't know it." The judge's wife is right. No woman is good enough for the Virginian. I
read that this book is the model for all Western romances that came afterward. As far as I can tell, this is Owen Wister's only book, cobbled from a series of short cowboy tales that he had written and then patched together to make this one wonderful story.
I have read it twice, and I am going to read it
again.
umwiltoh
Feb 26, 2009
Excellent Read
The story of a remarkable cowboy, told with humour, mischief, serious, and beauty. Plenty of beautiful vistas, colourful characters, strong friendships, desperate criminals, and even a bit of romance. It is hard to describe the plot since it is told in a series of episodes that gives you time to get to know the characters, but it still is cohesive and a highly recommended read!
