Wister, Owen (1860-1938)
Owen Wister was one of a long line of lawyer-writers in American literary history. This Pennsylvania-born, Harvard-educated patrician became one of America's first and most prominent writers of the Western genre. Popular in his own time, Wister developed his reputation as a short story writer. He began to publish his Western stories in 1895 and was acclaimed by many, including Rudyard Kipling. In 1902 he wrote his most famous novel, one that is said by many to define the Western genre: The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains. Loren D. Estleman wrote in the Dictionary of Literary Biography that: "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."
Wister was the only child of Sarah Butler and Owen Jones Wister. His father was an intellectual, his mother the daughter of a 19th-century actress, Fanny Kemble.
