Virginian (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Table of Contents

 

 

 

From the Pages of
The Virginian

I had stepped into a world new to me indeed, and novelties were occurring with scarce any time to get breath between them. As to where I should sleep, I had forgotten that problem altogether in my curiosity. What was the Virginian going to do now? I began to know that the quiet of this man was volcanic.

(page 23)

 

“When you call me that,
smile!”

(page 33)

 

For though utterly a man in countenance and in his self-possession and incapacity to be put at a loss, he was still boyishly proud of his wild calling, and wore his leathern chaps and jingled his spurs with obvious pleasure.

(page 61)

 

“Do you call it a manly thing to frighten and distress women because you—for no reason at all? I should never have imagined it could be the act of a person who wears a big pistol and rides a big horse. I should be afraid to go riding with such an immature protector.”

(page 103)

 

“Oh, pshaw! When yu’ can’t have what you choose, yu’ just choose what you have.”

(page 115)

 

What would the Virginian do to Trampas? Would it be another intellectual crushing of him, like the frog story, or would there be something this time more material—say muscle, or possibly gunpowder—in it?

(page 157)

 

‘When a man ain’t got no ideas of his own,” said Scipio, “he’d ought to be kind o’careful who he borrows ’em from.”

(page 199)

“Pity this isn’t New York, now, where there’s a big market for harmless horses. Gee-gees, the children call them.”

(page 214)

 

He had told her that he was coming for his hour soon. From that hour she had decided to escape. She was running away from her own heart. She did not dare to trust herself face to face again with her potent, indomitable lover. She longed for him and therefore she would never see him again.

(page 234)

 

“You must not stay—” Weakness overcame him, and his eyes closed. She sat ministering to him, and when he roused again, he began anxiously at once: “You must not stay. They would get you, too.”

(page 241)

 

Dead men I have seen not a few times, even some lying pale and terrible after violent ends, and the edge of this wears off; but I hope I shall never again have to be in the company with men waiting to be killed.

(page 278)

 

“He says with apparent pride,” wrote Sarah, “that he has ‘never killed for pleasure or profit.’ Those are his exact words, and you may guess their dreadful effect upon mother. I congratulate you, my dear, on having chosen a protector so scrupulous.”

(page 308)

 

“I am not going to let him shoot me.”

(page 339)

 

Something had changed. He looked everywhere, and feeling it everywhere, wondered what this could be. Then he knew: it was the sun that had gone entirely behind the mountains, and he drew out his pistol.

(page 344)

 

“A Western man is a good thing. And he generally knows that. But he has a heap to learn. And he generally don’t know that.”

(page 356)

BARNES & NOBLE CLASSICS
NEW YORK

 

Published by Barnes & Noble Books
122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011

 

 

The Virginian:
A Horseman of the Plains was first published in 1902.
The current text is taken from Wister’s revised edition of 1911.

 

Published in 2005 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

Introduction

Copyright © 2005 by John G. Cawelti.

 

Note on Owen Wister, The World of Owen Wister and
The Virginian,
Notes, Inspired by
The Virginian,
Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading Copyright @ 2005 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

 

Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-236-9 ISBN-10: 1-59308-236-3

eISBN : 978-1-411-43343-4

LC Control Number 2005929145

 

Produced and published in conjunction with:
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

 

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

 

Printed in the United States of America
QM
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

FIRST PRINTING

Owen Wister

Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, into a wealthy and distinguished Philadelphia family. His father, a physician, could trace his ancestors’ arrival in Pennsylvania to several months earlier than that of the state’s founder, William Penn. Owen’s maternal grandmother was the famous actress Fanny Kemble. As a boy he attended boarding schools in Switzerland as well as the prestigious St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire.

In 1878 Wister enrolled at Harvard University, where against his father’s wishes he majored in classical music. At Harvard he met Theodore Roosevelt, the future U.S. president, and the two became lifelong friends. Wister graduated from Harvard summa cum laude and went to Europe to continue his studies in music and composition. He gave up his dream of a musical career after only a few years, however, and returned to the United States. He worked for a time in an investment banking firm and then, in 1885, enrolled at Harvard Law School.

Before beginning law school Wister, suffering from a nervous disorder, spent the summer on a ranch in Wyoming on the advice of his doctor. He was immediately taken with the country. Over the next decade, despite three years of law school and a brief stint working as a lawyer, he made several more trips to the West, traveling throughout Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. He kept a detailed written account of the landscape and its inhabitants, from cattle rustlers to ranchers, cowboys, and American Indians.

Wister began writing stories about the American West, drawing upon his observations and experiences. His first published stories appeared in
Harper’s Monthly
in 1892. Others followed, and their popularity prompted Wister to abandon the law and devote his full attention to writing. In 1902 he brought together several of his stories, bound them with a cohesive narrative and a love story, and created his first novel,
The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains.
The novel was an instant best-seller and became a model for the “westerns” that followed.

Over the next thirty years, Wister continued to write. He produced another novel,
Lady Baltimore
(which introduced the Lady Baltimore Cake), several volumes of short stories, works of nonfiction (including several conservative political treatises), and children’s books. None of these works, however, achieved the status of his first novel. Owen Wister died on July 21, 1938, in Rhode Island.

The World of Owen Wister and
The Virginian