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Zane Grey

 
Who2 Biography: Zane Grey, Writer
 

  • Born: 31 January 1872
  • Birthplace: Zanesville, Ohio
  • Died: 23 October 1939
  • Best Known As: Author of Riders of the Purple Sage

Name at birth: Pearl Zane Grey

Zane Grey was a prolific and popular author of novels about the wild west of the United States, best known for his 1912 novel Riders of the Purple Sage. For nearly three decades in the early part of the 20th century Grey published a novel almost every year. Many of them became best-sellers, including Heritage of the Desert (1910), Mysterious Rider (1921) and Code of the West (1934). Raised in Ohio, Grey also lived in Pennsylvania and New York (where he practiced dentistry before he turned to writing), and eventually settled in the western part of the U.S., in California and Arizona. An avid fisherman, he travelled the world on fishing expeditions and wrote several non-fiction books about the outdoors, including 1925's Tales of Fishing.

Grey was one of early Hollywood's favorite authors: during the 1920s and 1930s, the movie industry cranked out dozens of westerns based on his short stories and novels... Grey is sometimes confused with fellow western author Louis L'Amour... Grey is no relation to Lady Jane Grey.

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Biography: Zane Grey
 

Ask anyone to name a western writer and chances are the first name to come to mind will be Zane Grey (1872-1939). Considered to be the father of the modern American western novel, Grey was beloved by two generations of readers. His strength as a writer was in his descriptions of the Old West as only he remembered it.

During his career as a writer, Zane Grey produced a total of 89 books. These included 56 novels set in the West, one set in the East, three Ohio River-country novels, two novelettes, three collections of short stories, two hunting books, six juvenile books, two books of baseball stories, and eight fishing books. From 1915 to 1924 a Grey book was in the top ten on the best seller list every year except 1916. Riders of the Purple Sage, published in 1912, is considered by most readers of Western novels as the best of its kind and also holds the record as his highest selling book. Called the people's author, Grey was published in hard cover, serialized in magazines, and reissued in paperback editions. Hollywood turned 46 of his books into movies beginning in 1912 and continuing into the present, with a new version of Riders of the Purple Sage for television. The television series, The Zane Grey Western Theatre, lasted from 1956 through 1960 and produced 145 episodes. His novels have been translated into 20 languages and are huge sellers in Europe and South America.

Pearl Zane Gray was the fourth of five children born to Lewis M. Gray and his wife Josephine Alice Zane Gray. His sisters Ella and Ida and his brother Lewis Ellsworth were older. Zane was closest to his brother Romer, who was only three years younger. His mother chose Pearl as his first name because she admired Queen Victoria and heard that pearl gray was her favorite color. The name caused him no end of trouble. When he became a professional writer he dropped Pearl and changed the spelling of his last name to Grey. Zanesville, the Ohio town where he was born, was named after his mother's family who founded the town. His family was not wealthy. His father made a living as a dentist and part time preacher, and fully intended that his second son would follow in his footsteps. He was a strict parent, and kept his children in line with the switch if necessary. Grey's main interests were fishing and baseball. As a teenager, girls became a focal point. Schoolwork ranked a distant fourth. He was later to regret this when he seriously began to write.

Early Influences

About the time he discovered fishing and baseball, Grey was introduced to books. He read Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and George Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, many times, as well as the Frank Castlemon books Frank in the Mountains and Frank at Don Carlos' Rancho. He also read Our Western Border and learned the history of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and his own ancestors Colonel Zane, Betty Zane and Isaac Zane who married the Wyandotte Indian princess Myeera after she saved him from burning at the stake. These literary influences determined the direction that his early writing would take.

Grey's father had definite ideas about what was a suitable career for his son and tore up his first story when he found it hidden in a cave. He made Grey learn the dental business as his assistant on Saturdays. Later, Grey won a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. His ability to sketch got him through his histology class and raised his grade level enough to get him on the baseball team. His pitching ability got him through dental school, not his grades.

Because New York City was the center of the writing and publishing world, Grey opened his dental office at 100 West 74th Street in 1896. It was at this time that he changed the spelling of his surname. Reluctantly, he practiced dentistry and wrote at night. He joined the Orange Athletic Club in East Orange, New Jersey, and played on their baseball team. The team was better than some professional teams, and Grey had a number of professional offers. He refused because his main ambition was to become a writer. His brother Romer, also a dentist, joined him in New York. Romer became a professional baseball player and the brothers remained close. The two were fishing and taking photographs on the Delaware River near Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, one afternoon in 1900 when Grey photographed the seventeen year old girl who would later become his wife. Lina Elise Roth was the daughter of a successful New York doctor who had recently died. She and her mother were spending the summer at the Delaware House. Even though she was eleven years younger and had not yet completed her education, the two became close friends. Grey gave her the nickname of Dolly, which she retained for the rest of her life. They were married five years later and went on to have three children: Romer, Betty, and Loren.

First Works Published

Grey's first story, A Day on the Delaware, was published in 1902. It dealt with a day spent fishing on the Delaware River with his brother Romer. He was paid only ten dollars, but was so proud that he gave copies of the story to his patients. Grey completed his first novel, Betty Zane, during the winter of 1902-1903. Dolly corrected the manuscript and rewrote it in longhand. When every publisher to whom he submitted the work rejected it, Dolly paid to have it published. The book sold well in New York, but never made its publishing costs back. His second novel, the Spirit of the Border, written in 1904-1905, with much help and encouragement from Dolly, was finally sold to a publisher.

The turning point in Grey's life came when he met Buffalo Jones and persuaded Jones to take him to his Arizona ranch. His wife financed this trip with the last of her inheritance The result was a story about Jones called Last of the Plainsmen, which was promptly rejected by Harper's. The Outing Publishing Company accepted it with no advance. Grey depended on articles he sold to sporting magazines and loans from his brother Romer to feed the family. Finally, Harper's accepted The Heritage of the Desert and Popular Magazine agreed to serialize it. After years of struggle, Grey's determination paid off. His novel was a success. The Heritage of the Desert was the prototype of all the Zane Grey westerns to follow, including the Eastern tenderfoot, wild horses, the Mormons, Indians, outlaws, cattlemen, sheepherders, and cowboys.

Riders of the Purple Sage

Grey's next novel, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), was one of his most complex and most enduring. Lassiter was the archetype of the western gunslinger-on the surface a killer, but underneath a good man motivated by injustice. Jane Withersteen, his heroine, was more complex than his usual women characters. She was twenty-eight, wealthy in her own right, and loyal to her Morman faith. The Mormon elders tried to force Jane to marry. Lassiter wanted to find out what happened to his sister. The two unite to fight the evil Elder Tull and Bishop Dyer. Morality is ambiguous in this novel, as outlaws are depicted as kind and churchmen revealed to be unbending and cruel. The story plays out against wonderfully described scenery and contains one of the most exciting horse races ever described in a novel. Harper's was reluctant to publish it for fear of offending members of the Mormon Church. Grey pled his case and Harper's relented. It became the most successful western novel ever published. The Rainbow Trail, which continued the story, was almost as popular.

With the success of his novels, Grey was becoming financially secure. He was now able to indulge in his favorite hobby, fishing. Grey enjoyed fishing in the Florida Keys, New Zealand, and Australia. He suffered from periods of deep depression. Being alone in a natural setting seemed to provide comfort and enabled him to continue writing. Thus, Grey and his wife were separated for months at a time. There was speculation that the marriage was in trouble, but that was never true. Their letters and diaries show that they remained devoted to each other.

Responded to Critics

Grey was always sensitive to the opinions of the critics. He had been accused of creating formulaic plots, drawing morally naïve and stereotypical characters, writing bad dialogue, and using verbose descriptions of scenery in the middle of an action scene. In an unpublished essay, My Answer to the Critics, Grey refered to his work as romances rather than novels. In the foreword to his novel To the Last Man, Grey wrote, "I have loved the West for its vastness, its contrasts, its beauty and color and life, for its wildness and violence, and for the fact that I have seen how it developed great men and women who died unknown and unsung. Romance is only another name for idealism; and I contend that life without ideals is not worth living." He carefully researched the historical background of his material and faithfully depicted the minutiae of ordinary Western life. He was one of the first authors to write about the polygamy in the Mormon Church, the Mexicans, the Indians, African American cowboys, and interracial marriage. When Loren Grey republished The Maverick Queen in 1981, it was discovered that some of his earlier work may have been toned down. Kit Bandon, the leading female character, was obviously a prostitute and much more swearing was written into the original version. He dealt with rape in 30.000 on the Hoof where an Indian rapes a white woman for revenge. The love of a white woman for an Indian is the subject of The Vanishing American. In the 1920 version Nophaie dies after a journey to the sacred bridge to seek God. In the 1982 version, which is the one Grey originally wrote, the two marry. In this novel he shows disgust for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the ineptitude of the missionaries who have little understanding of the Indians they are trying to convert.

In later years the Greys bought a large estate in Altadena, California, a house on Catalina Island, a ranch in Riverside county, a hunting lodge and ranch on the rim of the Tonto, in Arizona; and a fishing lodge at Wihnckle Bar, Oregon. Grey was at his Altadena estate when he died of a heart attack on October 23, 1939, as he practiced casting his fishing line from a rod installed on his front porch.

Further Reading

American National Biography, edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale Group, 1999.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale Group, 1981.

Gruber, Frank, Zane Grey, World Publishing Company, 1970.

Jackson, Carlton, Zane Grey, Twain Publishers, 1989.

Reference Guide to American Literature, 3rd ed., edited by Jim Kamp, St. James Press, 1994.

Western American Literature, Vol. X111, No. 1, Spring, 1978.

 

Zane Grey, 1938
(click to enlarge)
Zane Grey, 1938 (credit: Courtesy of Zane Grey Inc.)
(born Jan. 31, 1872, Zanesville, Ohio, U.S. — died Oct. 23, 1939, Altadena, Calif.) U.S. novelist. He began his career as a dentist. He first visited the American West in 1906, setting his first novel, The Heritage of the Desert (1910), there. His second novel, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), was also set in the West and became the most popular of all his books; it helped launch a new literary genre, the western. Grey subsequently wrote more than 80 westerns, including Code of the West (1934). He remains one of the best-selling authors of all time.

For more information on Zane Grey, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Zane Grey
Top
Grey, Zane, 1872–1939, American writer of Western stories, b. Zanesville, Ohio, as Pearl Zane Gray, grad. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1896. His melodramatic tales of the West and Southwest are vivid in topographical detail but improbable in character and situation. During his lifetime over 13 million copies of his books were sold, and his works did much to romanticize the popular image of the American West. Grey was best known for Riders of the Purple Sage (1912).

Bibliography

See biographies by F. Gruber (1970) and T. H. Pauly (2005); study by C. Jackson (1973, rev. ed. 1989).

 
Works: Works by Zane Grey
Top
(1872-1939)

1912Riders of the Purple Sage. In what has been called the most famous western ever written, the Ohio dentist achieves his first popular success and establishes his basic formula for more than fifty subsequent best-selling western novels. This is the story of Mormon heiress Jane Withersteen, who is convinced to resist the challenge to her cattle range by Lassiter, a gunman with a mysterious past. A sequel, The Rainbow Trail, would appear in 1914. Grey would produce more than sixty books, selling more than 13 million copies during his lifetime.

 
Wikipedia: Zane Grey
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Zane Grey

Zane Grey holds a koala during a visit to Australia
Born January 31, 1872(1872-01-31)
Zanesville, Ohio
Died October 23, 1939 (aged 67)
Altadena, California
Occupation Novelist, dentist
Nationality American
Genres Western fiction

Zane Grey (January 31, 1872October 23, 1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Pearl Zane Gray was born January 31, 1872 in Zanesville, Ohio. He was the fourth of five children born to Lewis M. Gray, a dentist, and his wife, Alice "Allie" Josephine Zane, whose Quaker ancestor Robert Zane came to America in 1673 from England.[1] His family changed the spelling of their last name to Grey after his birth. Later Grey used Zane as his first name. Grey grew up in Zanesville, a city founded by his maternal ancestor Ebenezer Zane, a Revolutionary War patriot, so he felt surrounded by history. Grey developed interests in fishing, baseball, and writing, all which contributed to his writing success.[2] His first three novels memorialized the heroism of his Revolutionary relatives.[3]

As a child, Grey frequently engaged in violent brawls. His father punished him with severe beatings. Though irascible and antisocial like his father, Grey was supported by a loving mother and had a father substitute. Muddy Miser was an old man who approved of Grey's love of fishing and writing, and who talked about the advantages of an unconventional life. Despite warnings by Grey’s father to steer clear of Muddy, Grey spent five formative years in the company of the old man.[4]

Grey was an avid reader who stoked his imagination with adventure stories (Robinson Crusoe and Leatherstocking Tales) and dime novels (featuring Buffalo Bill and "Deadwood Dick"). He was enthralled by and crudely copied the great illustrators Howard Pyle and Frederic Remington.[5] He was particularly impressed with Our Western Border, a history of the Ohio frontier which likely inspired his earliest novels.[6] Zane wrote his first story, Jim of the Cave, when he was fifteen. His father tore it to shreds and beat him.[7]

Both Grey and his brother Romer were active, athletic boys who were enthusiastic baseball players and fishermen.[8]

A severe financial setback in 1889 caused by a poor investment forced Grey's father, out of embarrassment, to move his family out of Zanesville to start anew in Columbus, Ohio.[9] His father struggled to re-establish his dental practice. Grey helped by making rural house calls and performing basic extractions, which he had learned from his father. He practiced until the state board intervened. Romer helped out by driving a delivery wagon.[10] Grey also worked as a part-time usher in a movie theater and played summer baseball for the Columbus Capitols, with aspirations of becoming a major leaguer.[11] Eventually, Grey was spotted by a baseball scout and received offers to many colleges. Romer also attracted attention and went on to have a pro-baseball career.[10]

Penn and baseball

Grey chose the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, where he studied dentistry and joined Sigma Nu fraternity; he graduated in 1896. When he arrived at Penn, he had to prove himself worthy of a scholarship before receiving it. He rose to the occasion by coming in to pitch against the Riverton club, pitching five no-run innings and producing a double in the tenth which contributed to the win.[12] The Ivy League was highly competitive and an excellent training ground for future pro baseball players. Grey was a solid hitter and an excellent pitcher who relied on a sharply dropping curve ball. When the distance from the pitcher's mound to the plate was lengthened by ten feet in 1894 (primarily to reduce the dominance of Cy Young’s pitching), the effectiveness of Grey’s pitching suffered. He was re-positioned to the outfield.[13] The short, wiry baseball player remained a campus hero on the strength of his timely hitting.[14]

He was an indifferent scholar, barely achieving a minimum average. Outside class he spent his time on baseball, pool, and creative writing, especially poetry.[12] His shy nature and his teetotaling set him apart and he socialized little. Grey struggled with the idea of becoming a writer or baseball player for his career, but unhappily concluded that dentistry was the practical choice.

During a summer break, while playing 'summer nines' in Delphos, Ohio, Grey was charged with, and quietly settled, a paternity suit. His father paid the $133.40 cost and Grey resumed playing summer baseball in Delphos. He managed to conceal the episode when he returned to Penn.[15] Grey went on to play minor league baseball with a team in Newark, New Jersey and also with the Orange Athletic Club for several years. His brother, Romer Carl "Reddy" Grey (known as "R.C." to his family) did better and played professionally in the minor leagues. He played a single major league game in 1903 for the Pittsburgh Pirates.[16]

Dentistry and marriage

After graduating, Grey established his practice in New York City under the name of Dr. Zane Grey in 1896. It was a competitive area but he wanted to be close to publishers. He began to write in the evening to offset the tedium of his dental practice.[17] He struggled financially and emotionally. Grey was a natural writer but his early efforts were stiff and grammatically weak. Whenever possible, he played baseball with the Orange Athletic Club in New Jersey, a team of former collegiate players that was one of the best amateur teams in the country.[17]

Grey often went camping with his brother R.C. in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where they fished in the upper Delaware River. When canoeing in 1900, Grey met seventeen year-old Lina Roth, better known as "Dolly". They married five years later. Dolly came from a family of physicians and was studying to be a schoolteacher.[18] They had a passionate and intense courtship, but quarreled frequently. Grey suffered bouts of depression, anger, and mood swings, which affected him most of his life. As he described it, “A hyena lying in ambush—that is my black spell! I conquered one mood only to fall prey to the next…I wandered about like a lost soul or a man who was conscious of imminent death."[19]

During his courtship with Dolly, Grey was still in contact with previous girlfriends and warned her frankly, "But I love to be free. I cannot change my spots. The ordinary man is satisfied with a moderate income, a home, wife, children, and all that….But I am a million miles from being that kind of man and no amount of trying will ever do any good". He added, "I shall never lose the spirit of my interest in women."[20]

When they married in 1905, Dolly gave up her teaching career. They moved to a farmhouse at the convergence of the Delaware and Lackawaxen rivers, in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where Grey's mother and sister joined them. (This historic house is preserved as the Zane Grey Museum.) Grey finally ceased his dental practice to devote full-time to his nascent literary pursuits. Dolly’s inheritance provided an initial financial cushion.[21] While his wife managed his career and raised their three children, over the next two decades Grey often spent months away from them. He fished, wrote and spent time with his many mistresses. While Dolly knew of his behavior, she seemed to view it as his handicap rather than a choice. Throughout their life together, he highly valued her management of his career and their family, and her solid emotional support. In addition to her considerable editorial skills, she had good business sense and handled all his contract negotiations with publishers, agents, and movie studios. All his income was split fifty-fifty with her; from her "share", she covered all family expenses.[22] Their considerable correspondence shows evidence of his lasting love for her despite his indiscretions and personal emotional turmoil.

The Greys moved to California in 1918. In 1920 they located in Altadena, California, where Grey bought a prominent mansion on East Mariposa Street, known locally as "Millionaire's Row". Designed by architects Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey (no relation to the author), the 1907 Mediterranean style house is acclaimed as the first fireproof home in Altadena, built entirely of reinforced concrete as prescribed by the first owner's wife. Grey summed up his feelings for Altadena with this quote: "In Altadena, I have found those qualities that make life worth living." (The city uses it in promotions.)

Literary career

With the help of Dolly’s proofreading and stylistic corrections, Grey gradually improved his style. His first magazine article, A Day on the Delaware, a human-interest story about a Grey brothers’ fishing expedition, was published in the May 1902 issue of Recreation magazine.[23] He was elated by selling the article, and he offered reprints to patients in his waiting room.[24] In writing, Grey found temporary escape from the harshness of his life and his demons. “Realism is death to me. I cannot stand life as it is.”[25] By this time, he had given up baseball.[26]

Grey read Owen Wister’s great Western novel The Virginian. After studying its style and structure in detail, he decided to write a full-length story.[25] Grey's first novel, Betty Zane (1903), was a torment to write. When it was rejected by Harper & Brothers, he lapsed into despair.[27] The novel dramatized the heroism of his ancestor who had saved Fort Henry. He self-published it, perhaps with funds provided by R. C.'s wealthy girlfriend Reba Smith or his wife Dolly.[28] From the beginning, vivid description was the strongest aspect of his writing.[29]

After attending a lecture in New York in 1907 by C. T. "Buffalo" Jones, famed western hunter and guide, Grey arranged for a mountain lion-hunting trip to the North rim of the Grand Canyon.[30] He brought along a ‘portable’ camera to document his trips and prove his adventures. He also began the habit of taking copious notes, not only of scenery and activities but of dialogue as well.[31] His first two trips were arduous, but Grey learned much from his rough compatriot adventurers. He gained the confidence to write convincingly about the West, its characters, and its landscape. Treacherous river crossings, unpredictable beasts, bone-chilling cold, searing heat, parching thirst, bad water, irascible tempers, and heroic cooperation all became real to him. He wrote, “Surely, of all the gifts that have come to me from contact with the West, this one of sheer love of wildness, beauty, color, grandeur, has been the greatest, the most significant for my work.”[32]

Upon returning home in 1909, Grey converted his experiences into a new book, The Last of the Plainsmen, recording the true-life adventures of Buffalo Jones. Harper’s editor Ripley Hitchcock rejected it, the fourth work in a row. He told Grey, “I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction.”[33] Grey was beside himself and wrote dejectedly, "I don’t know which way to turn. I cannot decide what to write next. That which I desire to write does not seem to be what the editors want...I am full of stories and zeal and fire...yet I am inhibited by doubt, by fear that my feeling for life is false".[34] The book was later published by Outing, providing some satisfaction. Grey next wrote a series of magazine articles and juvenile novels.

With the birth of his first child pending, Grey felt a sense of urgency to produce his next novel and his first Western, The Heritage of the Desert. He completed it in four months in 1910. It quickly became a bestseller. Grey took his next work to Hitchcock again; this time Harper published his work, an historical romance in which Mormon characters were of central importance.[32] He continued to write popular novels about Manifest Destiny, the conquest of the Old West, and the behavior of men in elemental conditions.

Two years later Grey produced his best-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), his all-time best-seller, and one of the most successful Western novels of all.[35] Hitchcock rejected it, but Grey took his manuscript directly to the vice president of Harper, who accepted it. As Zane Grey had become a household name, after that, Harper eagerly received all his manuscripts. Other publishers caught on to the commercial potential of the Western novel. Max Brand and Ernest Haycox were among the most notable of other authors of Westerns.[36] His publishers paired Grey's novels with some of the best illustrators of his time, including N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Douglas Duer, Herbert W. Dunton, W. H. D. Koerner, and Charles Russell.[37]

Grey had the time and money to engage in his first and greatest passion — fishing. From 1918 until 1932 he was a regular contributor to Outdoor Life magazine. He was one of its first celebrity writers. He began to popularize big-game fishing. Several times he went deep-sea fishing in Florida to relax and to write in solitude.[38] Although he commented that, “the sea, from which all life springs, has been equally with the desert my teacher and religion,” Grey was unable to summon a great sea novel from his imagination.[39] The sea, however, did soothe his moods, reduce his depressions, and gain him the opportunity to harvest deeper thoughts:

“The lure of the sea is some strange magic that makes men love what they fear. The solitude of the desert is more intimate than that of the sea. Death on the shifting barren sands seems less insupportable to the imagination than death out on the boundless ocean, in the awful, windy emptiness. Man’s bones yearn for dust.”[37]

Over the years, Grey spent part of the year traveling and the rest of the year using his adventures as the basis for writing stories. Unlike some writers who could write every day, Grey would have dry spells and then sudden bursts of energy, where he could wrote as much as 100,000 words in a month.[40] He encountered fans in most places. He kept a cabin on the Rogue River in Oregon. Other excursions took him to Washington state and Wyoming. He also had a cabin on the Mogollon Rim, in Central Arizona. He spent a few weeks a year at the cabin from 1923 to 1930. Since it burned down during the Dude Fire of 1990, it has been restored.[41]

During the 1930s, Grey continued to write, but the Depression hurt the publishing industry. His sales fell off. He found it more difficult to sell serializations. Luckily he had avoided the stock market crash and continued to secure royalty income. Nearly half of adaptations for film were made in the 1930s.[42] From 1925 to his death in 1939, Grey traveled more and further from his family. He became interested in exploring unspoiled lands, particularly the islands of South Pacific, and New Zealand and Australia. He thought his beloved Arizona was beginning to be overrun by tourists and speculators.[43] Near the end of his life, Grey looked into the future and wrote:

“The so-called civilization of man and his works shall perish from the earth, while the shifting sands, the red looming walls, the purple sage, and the towering monuments, the cast brooding range show no perceptible change.”[44]

Controversy and critics

The more books Grey sold, the more the established critics, such as Heywood Broun and Burton Rascoe, would attack him. They claimed his depictions of the West were too fanciful, too violent, and not faithful to the moral realities of the frontier. They thought his characters unrealistic and much larger-than-life. Broun stated that “the substance of any two Zane Grey books could be written upon the back of a postage stamp.”[45] T. K. Whipple praised a typical Grey novel as a modern version of the ancient Beowulf saga, “a battle of passions with one another and with the will, a struggle of love and hate, or remorse and revenge, of blood, lust, honor, friendship, anger, grief—all of a grand scale and all incalculable and mysterious.” But he goes on to criticize Grey’s writing, “His style, for example, has the stiffness which comes from an imperfect mastery of the medium. It lacks fluency and facility.”[46] In truth, as far as veracity was concerned, Grey relied on first-hand experience, careful note-taking, and considerable research.[47] Despite his great popular success and fortune, Grey read the reviews and somtimes became paralyzed by negative emotions after critical ones.[48]

In 1923 a reviewer called Grey’s “moral ideas…decidedly askew”. Grey reacted with a 20-page treatise “My Answer to the Critics”. He defended his intentions to produce great literature in the setting of the Old West.[49] He suggested that critics should ask his readers what they think of his books, and noted actor and fan John Barrymore as an example. Dolly warned him against publishing the treatise, and he retreated from a public confrontation.

His novel The Vanishing American (1925), first serialized in The Ladies’ Home Journal in 1922, started a heated debate. People recognized its Navajo hero as patterned after the great athlete Jim Thorpe. Grey portrayed the struggle of the Navajo to preserve their identity and culture against corrupting influences of the white government and of missionaries. This viewpoint enraged religious groups. Grey contended, “I have studied the Navaho Indians for twelve years. I know their wrongs. The missionaries sent out there are almost everyone mean, vicious, weak, immoral, useless men.”[50] To have the book published, Grey agreed to some structural changes. With this book, Grey completed the most productive period of his writing career, having laid out most major themes, character types, and settings.[51]

As with many writers, Grey produced his best work early in his career. Later he repeated himself. His fans were perfectly happy with the results, however, and each new book was eagerly anticipated, even after his death.[45]

His Wanderer of the Wasteland is his thinly disguised autobiography.[52] One of his books, “Tales of the Angler’s El Dorado, New Zealand”, helped establish the Bay of Islands in New Zealand as a premier game fishing area. Several of his later writings were based in Australia.

Literary output and legacy

Grey became one of the first millionaire authors. With veracity and emotional intensity, he connected with his millions of readers worldwide, during peacetime and war, and inspired many Western writers who followed him. Zane Grey was a major force in shaping the myths of the Old West and he helped transition the written Western into other media. He was the author of over 90 books, some published posthumously and/or based on serials originally published in magazines. His total book sales exceed 40 million.[53]

He not only wrote Westerns, but he also authored two hunting books, six children’s books, two baseball books, and eight fishing books.[54] Many of them became bestsellers. It is estimated that he wrote over nine million words in his career.[55] From 1917–1926, Grey was in the top ten best-seller list nine times, which required sales of over 100,000 copies each time.[56] Even after his death, Harper had a stockpile of manuscripts and continued to publish a new title each year until 1963.[57] During the 1940’s and afterwards, paperback sales of Grey’s books exploded.

Erle Stanley Gardner, prolific author of mystery novels and the Perry Mason series, said of Grey, he:

“had the knack of tying his characters into the land, and the land into the story. There were other Eastern writers who had fast and furious action, but Zane Grey was the one who could make the action not only convincing but inevitable, and somehow you got the impression that the bigness of the country generated a bigness of character.”[58]

Hollywood and other media

Grey started his association with Hollywood when William Fox bought the rights to Riders of the Purple Sage for $2,500 in 1916.[59] The ascending arc of Grey’s career matched that of the motion picture industry. It eagerly adapted Western stories to the screen practically from its inception, with Bronco Billy Anderson becoming the first major western star.[60] Legendary director John Ford was then a young stage hand and William S. Hart, who had been a real cowhand, was defining the persona of the film cowboy.[61] The Grey family moved to California to be closer to the film industry and to enable Grey to fish in the Pacific.

After his first two books were adapted to the screen, Grey formed his own motion picture company. This allowed him to control production values and faithfulness to his books. After seven films he sold his company to Jesse Lasky, who was a partner of the founder of Paramount Pictures. Paramount made a number of movies based on Grey's writings and hired him as advisor.[62] Many of his films were shot at locations described in his books.

Grey became disenchanted by the commercial exploitation and pirating of his works. He felt his stories and characters were diluted by being adapted to film.[63] Nearly fifty of his novels were converted into over one hundred Western movies, the most by any Western author.[64] Shortly after Grey's death, the success of Fritz Lang's Western Union (1941), a film based on one of his books, helped bring about a resurgence in Hollywood westerns. Its costars were Randolph Scott and Robert Young. The period of the 1940s and 1950s included the great works of John Ford, who successfully used the settings of Grey’s novels in Arizona and Utah.[65]

The success of Grey's The Lone Star Ranger (a novel later turned into a 1930 film) and King of the Royal Mounted (popular as a series of Big Little Books and comics, later turned into a 1936 film), inspired two radio series by George Trendle (WXYZ, Detroit). Later these were adapted again for television, forming the series The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon (Sgt. Preston of the Yukon on TV). More of Grey's work was featured in adapted form on the Zane Grey Show, which ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System for five months in the 1940s, and the “Zane Grey Western Theatre”, which had a five-year run of 145 episodes.[64]

Many famous actors got their start in films based on Zane Grey books. They included Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott, William Powell, Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen, Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple, and Fay Wray. Victor Fleming, later director of Gone with the Wind, and Henry Hathaway, who later directed True Grit, both learned their craft on Grey films.

Fishing

Grey indulged his interest in fishing with visits to Australia and New Zealand. He first visited New Zealand in 1926 and caught several large fish of great variety, including a mako shark, a ferocious fighter which presented a new challenge. Grey established a base at Otehei Bay Lodge on Urupukapuka Island which became a magnet for the rich and famous and wrote many articles in international sporting magazines highlighting the uniqueness of New Zealand fishing which has produced heavy-tackle world records for the major billfish, striped marlin, black marlin, blue marlin and broadbill. He held numerous world records during this time and invented the teaser, a hookless bait that is still used today to attract fish.

Grey also helped establish deep-sea sport fishing in New South Wales, Australia particularly in Bermagui, New South Wales, which is famous for Marlin fishing. Patron of the Bermagui Sport Fishing Association for 1936 and 1937, Grey set a number of world records, and wrote of his experiences in his book "An American Angler in Australia".

Catalina Island

Grey had built a getaway home in Avalon, Catalina Island, which now serves as the Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel, [1]. Avid fisherman as he was, he served as president of the Catalina's exclusive fishing club, the Tuna Club.

Death

Zane Grey died of heart failure on October 23, 1939 at his home in Altadena, California. He was interred at the Union Cemetery in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania.

Legacy and honors

Novels

  • Betty Zane, (1903)
  • Spirit of the Border, (1906) -- Sequel to Betty Zane
  • The Last of the Plainsmen, (1908), Western
  • The Last Trail, (1909) -- Sequel to Spirit of the Border
  • The ShortStop, (1909) Baseball
  • The Heritage of the Desert, (1910)
  • The Young Forester, (1910), Western
  • The Young Pitcher, (1911) Baseball
  • The Young Lion Hunter, (1911), Western
  • Riders of the Purple Sage, (1912) Western
  • Ken Ward in the Jungle, (1912), Western
  • Desert Gold, (1913), Western
  • The Light of Western Stars, (1914), Western
  • The Lone Star Ranger, (1915), Western (abridged version of Last of the Duanes (1996)
  • The Rainbow Trail, (1915), Western -- Sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage
  • The Border Legion, (1916), Western
  • Wildfire, (1917)
  • The UP Trail, (1918), Western
  • The Desert of Wheat, (1919)
  • Tales of Fishes, (1919), Non-Fiction/Fishing
  • The Man of the Forest, (1920), Western
  • The Redhead Outfield and other Stories, (1920) Baseball
  • The Mysterious Rider, (1921) Western
  • To the Last Man, (1921) (abridged version of Tonto Basin (2004)),
  • The Day of the Beast, (1922), Post-WWI novel
  • Tales of Lonely Trails, (1922), Western
  • Wanderer of the Wasteland, (1923)
  • Tappan’s Burro, (1923)
  • Call of the Canyon, (1924), Western
  • Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon, (1924), Western
  • Tales of Southern Rivers, (1924)
  • The Thundering Herd, (1925), Western
  • The Vanishing American Indian, (1925)
  • Tales of Fishing Virgin Seas, (1925) Non-Fiction/Fishing
  • Under the Tonto Rim, (1926)
  • Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand, (1926) Non-Fiction/Fishing
  • Forlorn River, (1927), Western
  • Tales of Swordfish and Tuna, (1927) Non-Fiction/Fishing
  • Nevada, (1928), Western -- Sequel to Forlorn River
  • Wild Horse Mesa, (1928), Western
  • Don, the Story of a Lion Dog, (1928), Western
  • Tales of Fresh Water Fishing, (1928) Non-Fiction/Fishing
  • Fighting Caravans, (1929), Western
  • Stairs of Sand (1929)
  • The Wolf Tracker, (1930)
  • The Shepherd of Guadaloupe, (1930)
  • Sunset Pass, (1931), Western
  • Tales of Tahitian Waters, (1931) Non-Fiction
  • Book of Camps and Trails, (1931) Non-Fiction
  • Arizona Ames, (1932), Western
  • Robber’s Roost, (1932), Western
  • The Drift Fence, (1933), Western
  • The Hash Knife Outfit, (1933), Western -- Sequel to The Drift Fence
  • The Code of the West, (1934), Western
  • Thunder Mountain, (1935), Western
  • The Trail Driver, (1935)
  • The Lost Wagon Train, (1936), Western
  • West of the Pecos, (1937)
  • An American Angler in Australia. The Derrydale Press (Now part of the Rowman & Littlefield Group). 1937. ISBN 9781564162045. 
  • Raiders of Spanish Peaks, (1938), Western
  • Western Union, (1939), Western
  • Knights of the Range, (1939), Western

Published posthumously

  • Thirty thousand on the Hoof, (1940)
  • Twin Sombreros, (1940), Western -- Sequel to Knights of the Range
  • Majesty’s Rancho, (1942), Western -- Sequel to Light of Western Stars
  • Omnibus, (1943), Western
  • Stairs of Sand, (1943), Western -- Sequel to Wanderer of the Wasteland
  • The Wilderness Trek, (1944), Western
  • Shadow on the Trail, (1946), Western
  • Valley of Wild Horses, (1947), Western
  • Rogue River Feud, (1948), Western
  • The Deer Stalker, (1949), Western
  • The Maverick Queen, (1950), Western
  • The Dude Ranger, (1951), Western
  • Captives of the Desert, (1952), Western
  • Adventures in Fishing, (1952)
  • Wyoming, (1953), Western
  • Lost Pueblo, (1954), Western
  • Black Mesa, (1955), Western
  • Stranger from the Tonto, (1956), Western
  • The Fugitive Trail, (1957), Western
  • Arizona Clan, (1958), Western
  • Horse Heaven Hill, (1959), Western
  • The Ranger and other Stories, (1960)
  • Blue Feather and other Stories, (1961)
  • Boulder Dam, (1963)
  • The Adventures of Finspot, (1974)
  • The Reef Girl, (1977)
  • Tales from a Fisherman’s Log, (1978)
  • The Camp Robber and other Stories, (1979)
  • The Lord of Lackawaxen Creek, (1981)
  • George Washington, Frontiersman, (1994), Historical Fiction
  • Last of the Duanes, (1996), western (unabridged version of The Lone Star Ranger (1915))
  • The Desert Crucible, (2003) western (unabridged version of The Rainbow Trail (1915))
  • Tonto Basin, (2004) western (unabridged version of To the Last Man (1921))
  • Shower of Gold, (2007), western (unabridged version of Desert Gold (1915))
  • The Zane Grey Frontier Trilogy (2007), includes Betty Zane, The Last Trail, and The Spirit of the Border
  • Western Legends (2008), includes To the Last Man, The Mysterious Rider, and The Lone Star Ranger
  • Tales Of The Gladiator, (2009)

TV & Film

Further reading

  • Zane Grey: "The Man Whose Books Made the West Famous" by Norris F. Schneider (1967)
  • Zane Grey: A Biography by Frank Gruber (1969)
  • Zane Grey by Carlton Jackson (1973)
  • Zane Grey by Anne Ronald (1975)
  • Zane Grey by Carol Gay (1979)
  • Zane Grey's Arizona by Candace C. Kant (1984)
  • Zane Grey: A Photographic Odyssey by Loren Grey (1985)
  • Zane Grey, A Documented Portrait by G.M. Farley (1985)
  • Selling the Wild West by Christine Bold (1987)
  • West of Everything by Jane Tompkins (1992)
  • Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women. by Thomas H. Pauly (2005)
  • Rider of the Purple Prose by Jonathan Miles, New York Times Book Review (1 January. 2006)
  • Zane Grey: A Study in Values - Above and Beyond the West by Chuck Pfeiffer (2006)
  • Ace of Hearts: The Westerns of Zane Grey by Arthur G. Kimball (1993)
  • Berryman, Jack W. (2006). "Zane Grey (1872-1939)". Fly-Fishing Pioneers and Legends of the Northwest. Seattle, WA: Northwest Fly Fishing LLC. pp. 124-133. ISBN 9780977945405. 
  • Reiger, George, ed (1972). Zane Grey-Outdoorsman. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. ISBN 0139838414. 

Notes

  1. ^ Stephen J. May, Zane Grey: romancing The West, Ohio University Press, Athens Ohio, 1997, p. 3, ISBN0-8214-1181-0
  2. ^ Frank Gruber, Zane Grey: A Biography, Mattituck, NY: Aeonian Press, 1969, pp. 6-7
  3. ^ Thomas H. Pauly, Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005, p. 13, ISBN 978-0-252-07492-9
  4. ^ May, p. 2
  5. ^ May, p. 6
  6. ^ Gruber, p. 13
  7. ^ May, p. 7
  8. ^ Gruber, p. 17
  9. ^ May, p. 8
  10. ^ a b Gruber, p. 26
  11. ^ Gruber, p. 22
  12. ^ a b May, p. 11
  13. ^ Pauly, p. 34
  14. ^ May, p. 16
  15. ^ Pauly, p. 35
  16. ^ Reddy Grey Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com
  17. ^ a b Gruber, p. 35
  18. ^ Gruber, p. 38
  19. ^ May, pp. 20-22
  20. ^ Pauly, p. 53, 57
  21. ^ Gruber, pp. 49-50
  22. ^ Gruber, p. 224
  23. ^ May, p. 23
  24. ^ Gruber, p. 44
  25. ^ a b May, p. 22
  26. ^ Gruber, p. 42
  27. ^ May, p. 34
  28. ^ Gruber, p. 47
  29. ^ May, p. 39
  30. ^ May, p. 48
  31. ^ Gruber, p. 167
  32. ^ a b May, p. 52
  33. ^ Gruber, p. 77
  34. ^ Pauly, p. 89
  35. ^ Gruber, p. 1, 105
  36. ^ Gruber, p. 108, 110
  37. ^ a b May, p. 83
  38. ^ Gruber, p. 117
  39. ^ May, p.120
  40. ^ Gruber, p. 214
  41. ^ Gruber, p. 218
  42. ^ Pauly, p. 311
  43. ^ May, p. 149
  44. ^ Pauly, p. 278
  45. ^ a b May, p. 157
  46. ^ Pauly, p. 258
  47. ^ Gruber, pp. 166-7
  48. ^ May, p. 133
  49. ^ May, p. 134
  50. ^ May, p. 138
  51. ^ May, p. 143
  52. ^ May, p. 118
  53. ^ Gruber, p. 243
  54. ^ Gruber, p. 2
  55. ^ Gruber, p. 3
  56. ^ Gruber, p. 1
  57. ^ May, p. 151
  58. ^ Gruber, p. 213
  59. ^ May, p. 103
  60. ^ May, p. 105
  61. ^ May, p. 106
  62. ^ May, pp. 108-9
  63. ^ May, p. 110
  64. ^ a b Gruber, p. 4
  65. ^ Pauly, p. 312

References

External links

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