Meet the novelists, journalists, and letter-writers who chronicled frontier life. From dime novelists to literary pioneers, these authors helped define the spirit of the West.
Nat Love, born into slavery in 1854, became one of the most famous Black cowboys in the Old West. Known as “Deadwood Dick,” he roamed the frontier, trained horses, survived ambushes (according to his own tales), and won a rodeo on the 4th of July in Deadwood. His larger-than-life adventures still capture imaginations today.
Owen Wister wasn’t a cowboy—he was a Harvard-educated lawyer from Philadelphia. But in 1902, he wrote The Virginian, the first smash-hit western novel. A trip out west—and a friendship with Teddy Roosevelt—inspired a book that launched a genre.
The Wild West of Yesteryear Column by Rachel Kovaciny If you like to read books about the Old West, you may have heard of a book called Ramona by a woman named Helen Hunt Jackson. Written in 1884, it takes place after…