| Name: |
Owen Wister |
| Birth Date: |
|
| Death Date: |
|
| Nationality: |
|
| Gender: |
|
The importance of Owen Wister to the literature of the American West--and, by extension, to the development of American literature in the twentieth century--cannot be overstated. The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains (1902) lifted the frontier story out of the dime-novel category founded by Ned Buntline and Prentiss Ingraham and placed it securely in the mainstream. With The Virginian Wister fashioned both a native language and a national voice, characteristics sorely lacking in previous attempts to establish a literary culture independent from that of Europe. Most if not all of the staples associated with the western genre--fast-draw contests, the Arthurian code, and such immortal lines as "This town ain't big enough for both of us" and "When you call me that--smile!"--first appeared in this groundbreaking novel about one man's championship of justice in the wilderness. Wister's interpretation of the West as a place where few of the civilized concepts of social conduct apply separated his stories from the sensational accounts then popular.
This is a free page. This page contains 151 words. This
biography contains 4,541 words (approx. 15 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Owen Wister Access Pass.
