A History of Television's The Virginian, 1962-1971

by Paul Green

On September 19, 1962, The Virginian made its primetime broadcast premiere. The 1902 novel by Owen Wister had already seen four movie adaptations when Frank Price mentioned the story's series potential to NBC. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series. Immensely successful, it ran for nine seasons--television's third longest running western. This work accounts for the entire creative history of The Virginian , including the original inspirations and the motion picture adaptations--but the primary focus is its transformation into television and the ways in which the show changed over time. An extensive episode guide includes title, air date, guest star(s), writers, producers, director and a brief synopsis of each of The Virginian 's 249 episodes, along with detailed cast and production credits.

Genres: Nonfiction

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Born Lincoln, England. Three years at Oldham Art College led to employment at World Distributors in Manchester working on numerous TV related book titles. Freelance for various publishers including Marvel, DC and Whitman-Golden Books U.S.A. and animated projects for BBC and ITV. I emigrated to the U.S.A. in 2002.

Published work:
Green's Guide to Collecting TV, Music and Comic Book Annuals (2000)
A History of Television’s The Virginian 1962-1971 (2006 Hardback; 2009 Softcover edition)
Pete Duel : A Biography (2007; 2009 Large Print edition; 2015 Second Edition)
Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns (2009; 2016 Second Edition)
Jennifer Jones: The Life and Career (2011)
Roy Huggins: Creator of Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, The Fugitive and The Rockford Files (2014)
Jeffrey Hunter: The Film, Television, Radio and Stage Performances (2014)
Encyclopedia of Weird War Stories (2016)
Encyclopedia of Weird Detectives (2019)

Reviews

[Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't want to be too harsh on this book as it is the only book with information about this series. However, it left me wanting more. I was hoping for more information on the episodes, not from a director/producer point of view on technical logistics. I wanted a more character description and story guide.

[Linda Bittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insights To a Classic TV Western

I very much enjoyed this book about my favorite western show. I'd forgotten how good it was until recently. I'm watching season 8 now through my A.as on Prime, and got curious. Given all the crazy stories in this book, I'm more impressed than ever!