The Virginian

You will probably be surprised by the book if you ever watched the old Virginian TV show.

Monte Walsh (also written Jack Schaefer) is old favorite of mine.

Sherlock Holmes debut story was a Western (no kidding!). Mormonism is one of the off-beat topics of Westerns. Big Love (the TV series) is sort of a modern Mormon Western. In one of Peter Haining's collection of penny dreadful stories there's an excerpt from some old story about Mormons, renegades & British exiles.

If you've got a Dollar General in your area, you can find a lot of paperback Westerns for a dollar fifty (I think it's remaindered Dorchester books). A lot of them are by pulp-era authors, Max Brand & Zane Grey. There are also a lot of lesser-known writers. Dane Coolidge, Walt Coburn, Frank Bonham & Giff Cheshire have turned out to be great discoveries. Johnny Boggs is a modern writer who is on a par with the good old stuff.

I have to confess, I've never read the Virginian. When I go looking for older Westerns I tend to focus on the pulps. There's tons of pulp stories on Pulpgen. Please give us your review of The Virginian when you've read it!

Ditto what Alleycat said about the old 1960s TV series, which had about as much relation to the classic novel as a grasshopper has to a giant squid. But The Virginian, by Owen Wister, is certainly one of the seminal Western novels. It really represents the archetype of the silent, strong Western hero, portrayed in movies not so much by John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, as by Gary Cooper.

I had a bit of a struggle with it, when I read it some years ago. Not quite sure why.

But it was a hugely influential and ground-breaking novel.

caw

Speaking of The Virginian TV show . . .

I remembered it as one of my favorite TV westerns (especially the early episodes with Lee J. Cobb). It was a long time before they put out a DVD of the compete series. I got the set, and while I enjoyed several episodes, it no longer really held my interest like it once did. I think Stephen King is at least partially right about some old movies and TV shows not seeming real to a viewer any more (he used Bonanza and Cat People as examples). Now when I watch The Virginian it just screams "filmed on the back lot" (although, as I recall, the actually location was a film ranch near LA--I remember James Drury saying he rode his horse from his house to the film ranch some mornings). Those cowboys never got very dirty either.

Dave Hardy said:

If you've got a Dollar General in your area, you can find a lot of paperback Westerns for a dollar fifty (I think it's remaindered Dorchester books).

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My local library has an honor system for old westerns and other mass market paperbacks. They don't even check them out; their comment to me one time was, "We prefer that you bring them back, but we don't really care whether you do or not."

alleycat said:

My local library has an honest system for old westerns and other mass market paperbacks. They don't even check them out; their comment to me one time was, "We prefer that you bring them back, but we don't really care whether you do or not."

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I've seen that in other places, but not Austin (they have a periodic sales of donated books or books purged from the catalog). I think a lot of libraries consider old mass-market paperbacks to be more trouble than they are worth.

Veering back to e-books, I recall that Leisure offered a lot (if not all) their catalog of Westerns via NetLibrary. It's a pain to use NetLibrary's interface though. Now I'm seeing more e-books available as time-limited library downloads. I don't know if Leisure is doing that, but there may be more out there for Western-reading Kindle users.

Dave Hardy said:

Veering back to e-books, I recall that Leisure offered a lot (if not all) their catalog of Westerns via NetLibrary. It's a pain to use NetLibrary's interface though. Now I'm seeing more e-books available as time-limited library downloads. I don't know if Leisure is doing that, but there may be more out there for Western-reading Kindle users.

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My library uses both NetLibrary and Overdrive. I much prefer Overdrive (once set up, downloads are a snap--either audio books or e-books). They might actually be getting away from NetLibrary.

I know I am coming to this discussion late...but I can't help myself...The Virginian is one of my favorite books. It's a classic for a reason. It's awesome!

Did you read it yet? How did you like it?

I have yet to read The Virginian! Heard great things about it. I put it on my Summer reading list.