Search - The Virginian

This one bought for a gift, but the recipient did enjoy the first book--this was our second one we bought.

I didn't realize that this would be a morality play and a love story and an adventure story, all rolled up into one. It's almost a collection of short stories, connected by the "horseman of the Plains", the Virginian. To a modern reader, the book can be a little preachy, the language a bit old-fashioned, but the honesty and thoughtfulness behind the words is real and enduring. In the few years between Wister's visits to Wyoming, which were the inspiration for this book, and the book's publication, the West that Wister brings to life had all but disappeared. But The Virginian remains a tribute to the beauty, the virtues, and the shortcomings of the era and its people.