Classic fiction

The Virginian

by Owen Wister

352 pages · First published 1902

An unnamed cowboy known as the Virginian works on a Wyoming ranch, where his quiet competence and personal code gradually earn the respect of those around him. His courtship of Eastern schoolteacher Molly Wood forces both characters to confront the cultural distance between established Eastern society and the rougher values of the frontier. The Virginian’s friendship with Steve and rivalry with the dangerous Trampas place questions of loyalty, cattle theft, vigilante justice, and violence at the center of his moral world. Owen Wister’s influential 1902 novel helped establish the literary Western and many of the cowboy archetypes later associated with the genre.