Zane Grey, original name Pearl Grey, (born Jan. 31, 1872, Zanesville, Ohio, U.S.--died Oct. 23, 1939, Altadena, Calif.), prolific writer whose romantic novels of the American West largely created a new literary genre, the western. Trained as a dentist, Grey practiced in New York City from 1898 to 1904, when he published privately a novel of pioneer life, Betty Zane, based on an ancestor's journal. Deciding to abandon dentistry for full-time writing, he published in 1905 The Spirit of the Border--also based on Zane's notes- ...
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Zane Grey, original name Pearl Grey, (born Jan. 31, 1872, Zanesville, Ohio, U.S.--died Oct. 23, 1939, Altadena, Calif.), prolific writer whose romantic novels of the American West largely created a new literary genre, the western. Trained as a dentist, Grey practiced in New York City from 1898 to 1904, when he published privately a novel of pioneer life, Betty Zane, based on an ancestor's journal. Deciding to abandon dentistry for full-time writing, he published in 1905 The Spirit of the Border--also based on Zane's notes--which became a best-seller. Grey subsequently wrote more than 80 books, a number of which were published posthumously; more than 50 were in print in the last quarter of the 20th century. The novel Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was the most popular; others included The Lone Star Ranger (1915), The U.P. Trail (1918), Call of the Canyon (1924), and Code of the West (1934). Prominent among his nonfiction works is Tales of Fishing (1925). (britannica.com) The more books Grey sold, the more the established critics, such as Heywood Broun and Burton Rascoe, attacked him. They claimed his depictions of the West were too fanciful, too violent, and not faithful to the moral realities of the frontier. They thought his characters unrealistic and much larger-than-life. Broun stated that "the substance of any two Zane Grey books could be written upon the back of a postage stamp." T. K. Whipple praised a typical Grey novel as a modern version of the ancient Beowulf saga, a battle of passions with one another and with the will, a struggle of love and hate, or remorse and revenge, of blood, lust, honor, friendship, anger, grief--all of a grand scale and all incalculable and mysterious." But he also criticized Grey's writing, "His style, for example, has the stiffness which comes from an imperfect mastery of the medium. It lacks fluency and facility. Grey based his work in his own varied first-hand experience, supported by careful note-taking, and considerable research. Despite his great popular success and fortune, Grey read the reviews and sometimes became paralyzed by negative emotions after critical ones. (wikipedia.org)
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Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
The Border Legion has without a doubt the greatest of Zane Grey's villains--the blond beast, Gulden, whose way with women was a rope and a cave, the most vicious and depraved of the border bandits. And as in earlier works by Zane Grey this novel had to undergo many editorial changes demanded by his publisher before they would print it. Things today which seem very tame indeed, but yet his editors felt did not belong in fiction, regardless of how historically accurate Zane Grey was being to actual events upon which this book was based. When Joan Randle decides to follow her 'boyfriend' Jim Cleve after he departs because of a quarrel she finds herself captured by this outlaw gang and held, only to find out Jim has joined them as well. (She had accused Jim of not being man enough to even be bad, so he sets out to prove her wrong.) This book is a fascinating look at what happens to men, I should say, mankind, when driven by their passions and left to revert to the barbaric when the environment is one of dog eat dog i.e. "survival of the fittest" a phrase used by Darwin and popularized by Zane Grey, as he subscribed to some of Darwin's theories, as seen in many of his novels as he expressed his philosophy of life, and concerns for America in his writings. It has been said more students learned of Darwin's theory from reading Zane Grey than they did in the class room. But if one goes beyond any "hidden" agenda and reads this book as a novel of escapism and adventure and romance it is a good read I think you will enjoy.
P.S. If you want the unexpurgated version as Zane Grey wrote it buy a copy of Cabin Gulch, Five Star Westerns 2006.
