Out West: Bookmark

              ORIGINS

OF

A

NATIONAL

MYTH

OUT WEST
WOLFVILLE

Alfred Henry Lewis (1858-1914) Illustrated by Frederic Remington (1861-1909) First Edition New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1897 Alfred Henry Lewis, a New York journalist and active Progressive Democrat, wrote historical romances, exposes, and patriotic histories, but is best remembered for his Wolfville books, set in the Golden Age (1880s) of the Southwest. These novels might be regarded as a transitional step between the mining camp tales of Mark Twain and Bret Harte and the cowboy novels that followed The Virginian. Wolfville is probably Tombstone, and the plot revolves around the life of the town. His characters---cardsharps, vigilantes, Wells Fargo drivers, fancy ladies---are by now familiar. The "Old Cattleman," whose narrative holds the loosely connected short stories together, is the original, wizened, sidekick philosopher that became so popular in later westerns. (In print.)
RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE Zane Grey (1872-1939) First Edition New York: Harper, 1912 Zane Grey wrote 60-odd books which sold 13-15 million copies. He was diligent in his research and he succeeded in reproducing authentic landscapes. Otherwise, he was influenced by books he had read as a youth. Riders of the Pu rp Ie Sage con tains the ingredien ts of the classic western: a woman in need of protection, a cowboy in need of a home, a gunman, a masked girl, an "outlaw," a kidnapping, rustlers, Mormons, cliff-dwellings and gold. The Heritage of the Desert (1910) and Rainbow Trail (1915) are two other early novels inspired by Grey's visits to Arizona in 1906 and 1907. (In print.)

WRITERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE: ORIGINS OF A NATIONAL MYTH brings the early Southwest to life with popular literature, films, museum artifacts, illustrations and discussions with scholars in libraries throughout the region. OUT WEST programs are the first in a series of four. Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and administered by the Tucson Public Library, P.O. Box 27470, Tucson, Arizona 85726-7470 (602) 791-4391.