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Owen Wister Out West: His Journal and Letters
- GenresBiography
Textbook Binding
Published July 1, 1979
About the author
Owen Wister
261 books65 followersOwen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a neighborhood within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician, one of a long line of Wisters raised at the storied Belfield estate in Germantown. His mother, Sarah Butler Wister, was the daughter of actress Fanny Kemble.
Education
He briefly attended schools in Switzerland and Britain, and later studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a classmate of Theodore Roosevelt, an editor of the Harvard Lampoon and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter). Wister graduated from Harvard in 1882.
At first he aspired to a career in music, and spent two years studying at a Paris conservatory. Thereafter, he worked briefly in a bank in New York before studying law, having graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1888. Following this, he practiced with a Philadelphia firm, but was never truly interested in that career. He was interested in politics, however, and was a staunch Theodore Roosevelt backer. In the 1930s, he opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Writing career
Wister had spent several summers out in the American West, making his first trip to Wyoming in 1885. Like his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. On an 1893 visit to Yellowstone, Wister met the western artist Frederic Remington; who remained a lifelong friend. When he started writing, he naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. Wister's most famous work remains the 1902 novel The Virginian, the loosely constructed story of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War and taking the side of the large land owners. This is widely regarded as being the first cowboy novel and was reprinted fourteen times in eight months.[5] The book is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.
Personal life
In 1898, Wister married Mary Channing, his cousin.The couple had six children.
Wister's wife died during childbirth in 1913, as Theodore Roosevelt's first wife had died giving birth to Roosevelt's first daughter, Alice.
Wister died at his home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. He is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
Education
He briefly attended schools in Switzerland and Britain, and later studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a classmate of Theodore Roosevelt, an editor of the Harvard Lampoon and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter). Wister graduated from Harvard in 1882.
At first he aspired to a career in music, and spent two years studying at a Paris conservatory. Thereafter, he worked briefly in a bank in New York before studying law, having graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1888. Following this, he practiced with a Philadelphia firm, but was never truly interested in that career. He was interested in politics, however, and was a staunch Theodore Roosevelt backer. In the 1930s, he opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Writing career
Wister had spent several summers out in the American West, making his first trip to Wyoming in 1885. Like his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. On an 1893 visit to Yellowstone, Wister met the western artist Frederic Remington; who remained a lifelong friend. When he started writing, he naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. Wister's most famous work remains the 1902 novel The Virginian, the loosely constructed story of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War and taking the side of the large land owners. This is widely regarded as being the first cowboy novel and was reprinted fourteen times in eight months.[5] The book is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.
Personal life
In 1898, Wister married Mary Channing, his cousin.The couple had six children.
Wister's wife died during childbirth in 1913, as Theodore Roosevelt's first wife had died giving birth to Roosevelt's first daughter, Alice.
Wister died at his home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. He is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 10, 2012
Owen Wister, author of the classic western novel, "The Virginian" (1902), was from a well-established Philadelphia family. Destined for a career in law, he traveled West in 1885, at the age of 25, and fell in love with wide open spaces. Over a half century later, the journals he kept during this and his return trips over the following years were discovered by his children and published, along with some letters home, by his daughter, Fanny Kemble Wister.
His early journals are mostly devoted to accounts of hunting expeditions, and it isn't until midway through this book that readers will begin to find matters relating to Wister's career as a writer of western literature. The later journals become more self-consciously notebooks recording impressions that would find their way into his stories, which began to appear in Harpers and other popular magazines during this period. Committed to writing realistic portrayals of the West, he records lists of Western lingo, stories related by the people he meets on his travels, and descriptions of frontier towns.
One story, the switching of babies at a dance, finds its way into the novel "The Virginian," and so does his account of a traveling companion's vicious abuse of a horse. But besides references to two men, Army Corporal Skirdin and Dean Duke, whom Wister admired, the journals reveal little about his inspiration for the character of the Virginian. The journals are a window into the personality and values of the author who helped invent the cowboy hero (he dislikes traveling salesmen and laments the general lack of American character), but to find the origins of "The Virginian," one needs to look very hard between the lines.
His early journals are mostly devoted to accounts of hunting expeditions, and it isn't until midway through this book that readers will begin to find matters relating to Wister's career as a writer of western literature. The later journals become more self-consciously notebooks recording impressions that would find their way into his stories, which began to appear in Harpers and other popular magazines during this period. Committed to writing realistic portrayals of the West, he records lists of Western lingo, stories related by the people he meets on his travels, and descriptions of frontier towns.
One story, the switching of babies at a dance, finds its way into the novel "The Virginian," and so does his account of a traveling companion's vicious abuse of a horse. But besides references to two men, Army Corporal Skirdin and Dean Duke, whom Wister admired, the journals reveal little about his inspiration for the character of the Virginian. The journals are a window into the personality and values of the author who helped invent the cowboy hero (he dislikes traveling salesmen and laments the general lack of American character), but to find the origins of "The Virginian," one needs to look very hard between the lines.
Displaying 1 of 1 review