American author Owen Wister wrote The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains in 1902; it takes place in Wyoming Territory in the 1880s. The story opens with an unknown narrator traveling to Medicine Bow, Wyoming, and meeting a very tall and attractive stranger. The unnamed visitor who escorted the narrator to Judge Henry's ranch in Sunk Creek, Wyoming, turns out to be the Virginian. The narrator and the Virginian get to know one another as he gradually starts to comprehend the extremely different from what he had anticipated nature of life in the West. The narrator's account of significant events in the life of the Virginian begins with this encounter, which also marks the beginning of a relationship that will last a lifetime. The Virginian's life and adventures are followed throughout the book. The fight with his enemy Trampas and his relationship with Molly Stark Wood serve as the central plot for this tale of action, brutality, hatred, retaliation, love, and friendship.
American author and historian Owen Wister, who lived from July 14, 1860, to July 21, 1938, is regarded as the "father" of western fiction. His work on The Virginian and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant are the most renowned.
On July 14, 1860, Owen Wister was born in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania district of Germantown. His father, the wealthy physician Owen Jones Wister, was raised in Grumblethorpe in Germantown. His mother, Sarah Butler Wister, was the daughter of Pierce Mease Butler and British actress Fanny Kemble.
Before attending St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and Delta Kappa Epsilon, Wister temporarily attended schools in Switzerland and Britain (Alpha chapter).
Wister's first book, a spoof of The Swiss Family Robinson from 1812, was published in 1882. He spent numerous summers in the American West, where he developed a fascination for the people, legends, and landscape.
Wister wed Mary Channing, a relative of his, in 1898. The couple has six kids together. In 1913, Channing passed away while giving a delivery. In 1933, Marina Wister, their daughter, wed the painter Andrew Dasburg.
Wister passed away in 1938 at his Saunderstown, Rhode Island, residence. He is interred in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery.
