Owen Wister
The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664165039
Table of Contents
II. “WHEN YOU CALL ME THAT, SMILE!”
IX. THE SPINSTER MEETS THE UNKNOWN
XI. “YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE ME BEFORE WE GET THROUGH”
XIII. THE GAME AND THE NATION—ACT FIRST
XV. THE GAME AND THE NATION—ACT SECOND
XVI. THE GAME AND THE NATION—LAST ACT
XVIII. “WOULD YOU BE A PARSON?”
XX. THE JUDGE IGNORES PARTICULARS
XXXIII. THE SPINSTER LOSES SOME SLEEP
XXXV. WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
To THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Some of these pages you have seen, some you have praised, one stands new-written because you blamed it; and all, my dear critic, beg leave to remind you of their author's changeless admiration.
TO THE READER
Certain of the newspapers, when this book was first announced, made a mistake most natural upon seeing the sub-title as it then stood, A TALE OF SUNDRY ADVENTURES. “This sounds like a historical novel,” said one of them, meaning (I take it) a colonial romance. As it now stands, the title will scarce lead to such interpretation; yet none the less is this book historical—quite as much so as any colonial romance. Indeed, when you look at the root of the matter, it is a colonial romance. For Wyoming between 1874 and 1890 was a colony as wild as was Virginia one hundred years earlier. As wild, with a scantier population, and the same primitive joys and dangers. There were, to be sure, not so many Chippendale settees.
We know quite well the common understanding of the term “historical novel.” HUGH WYNNE exactly fits it. But SILAS LAPHAM is a novel as perfectly historical as is Hugh Wynne, for it pictures an era and personifies a type. It matters not that in the one we find George Washington and in the other none save imaginary figures; else THE SCARLET LETTER were not historical. Nor does it matter that Dr. Mitchell did not live in the time of which he wrote, while Mr. Howells saw many Silas Laphams with his own eyes; else UNCLE TOM'S CABIN were not historical. Any narrative which