During the years 1907–1915, frontier fiction boomed with new writers, and the success of Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902) began to make itself felt in their work. That novel had made the bestseller lists for two years running. With the continued popularity of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show, and the appearance of one-reeler westerns on movie screens, many featuring the adventures of Bronco Billy Anderson, the cowboy hero was becoming an established mythic figure in the public imagination.   For writers of popular fiction, the frontier was also a subject for exploring ideas drawn from current public discourse—ideas about character and villainy, women’s rights, romance and marriage, democracy and government, capitalism, race and social boundaries, and the West itself. With each new publication, they participated as well in an ongoing forum for how to write about the West and how to tell western stories. Taken together, the chapters of this book describe for modern-day readers and writers the origins of frontier fiction and the rich legacy it has left us as a genre. It is also a portal into the past, for it offers a history of ideas as preserved in popular culture of a century ago that continues to claim an audience today.  ***** Praise for How the West Was Written: Vol. 1:  “This is a splendid study of early western fiction, most of it written contemporaneously with the settlement of the American West. A surprising number of women authors are included among the sixty-some novels reviewed by the author. The book offers penetrating, rich, and lucid examinations of these early novels, and gives us a good understanding of where western fiction came from and how it has evolved. Highly recommended.” —Richard S. Wheeler Spur Award-winning author  “[Ron Scheer’s] scholarship is meticulous and the book is an enlightening contribution to American literature with this study of the Western, its roots and its themes. I’m proud to have it on my bookshelf. It’s unique in the canon, as far as I know.” —Carol Buchanan Spur Award-winning author

How the West Was Written: Frontier Fiction: 1907-1915

Scheer, Ron

Reference

BEAT to a PULP

This book began as a question about the origins of the cowboy western ... how it grew from Owen Wister’s bestseller, The Virginian (1902), to Zane Grey’s first novels a decade later. A reading of frontier fiction from that period, however, soon reveals that the cowboy western was only one of many different kinds of stories being set in the West.  Besides novels about ranching and the cattle industry, writers wrote stories about railroads, mining, timber, the military, politics, women’s rights, temperance, law enforcement, engineering projects, homesteaders, detectives, preachers and, of course, Indians, all of it an outpouring between the years 1880–1915. That brief 35-year period extends from the Earp-Clanton gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona, to the start of the First World War.  The chapters of How the West Was Written tell a story of how the western frontier fed the imagination of writers, both men and women. It illustrates how the cowboy is only one small figure in a much larger fictional landscape. There are early frontier novels in which he is the central character, while in others he’s only a two-dimensional, tobacco-chewing caricature, or just an incidental part of the scenery.  A reading of this body of work reveals that the best-remembered novel from that period, The Virginian, is only one among many early western stories. And it was not the first. The western terrain was used to explore ideas already present in other popular fiction—ideas about character, women, romance, villainy, race, and so on. A modern reader of early western fiction discovers that Wister’s novel was part of a flood of creative output. He and, later, Zane Grey were just two of many writers using the frontier as a setting for telling the human story.

How the West Was Written: Frontier Fiction, 1880-1906

It’s been thirty years since the economy collapsed, and all Dillon has ever known is a world without electricity or medicine, living in a community constantly under the threat of starvation as they struggle to feed the rest of the country. Orphaned and alone, unsure of his future, Dillon serves as a lookout, watching for the bands of Scavengers that prey on towns like his—while also trying to keep away from the mayor’s twin sons, who are bent on terrorizing him. When a Forager rides into town, he opens Dillon’s eyes to the possibility of another life for himself. And when a Scavenger attack leaves the Forager injured, he sends Dillon out on a mission that may mean the difference between life and death for the mayor’s missing daughter. Dillon is about to find more than a way to help his community—he’s about to find himself.

The Forager

Literature & Fiction

Action & Adventure

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Nothing escaped Ron Scheer's sharp eye. In the course of preparing his magisterial work on early western fiction, he came across countless phrases, words, and usages that were unfamiliar to modern readers. The novels he was examining ranged from the late 19th century well into the 20th, and contained vernacular that had vanished.  He set to work recording these phrases, including their context, and their numbers multiplied over the years. Many of these phrases were at least a century old, and were connected to the social circumstances and technology of the times. As the world changed, so did language. Allusions to horses and buggies, steam engines, open-range ranching, and all the social proprieties of that period departed stage right, while new words, new vernacular crowded into our consciousness stage left.  He no doubt realized that for modern readers to grasp what those long-gone authors were saying, and the social events they were describing, some sort of glossary would be necessary. Otherwise, the pages of these novels would be crowded with gibberish.  The ability to translate these mysterious allusions and phrases into something modern readers can comprehend is a portal into other times. ... It illuminates a lost world, but it also illuminates Mr. Scheer's genius.  --Richard S. Wheeler, Spur Award-winning author From the introduction of How the West Was Written Vol. 3  * * * * *   PRAISE FOR HOW THE WEST WAS WRITTEN VOL. 3  "I learn something new every time I open this book, and I've been writing Westerns and studying the Old West for more than thirty years. This volume of Ron Scheer's magnificent trilogy is destined to be an indispensable reference work, just like the first two books." --James Reasoner Author of Outlaw Ranger  "Ron Scheer's study of the novels and the language and everyday talk of the Old West continues to delight and amaze me. What is most astounding is how few of the terms remain in use today. They're embedded in a life long-gone and you have little hope of intuiting them. But Ron Scheer took on the task and consequently this language, this jargon is not lost. A few of my personal favorite terms are Back of the Beyond, Hell's Half-Acre and Prunes and Prisms. You'll have to consult this marvelous book to find out just what these terms mean! Also included in the glossary are the names of songs, books, hymns, and people who made up the Old West. A monumental task executed with grace and skill. Highly recommended." --Patricia Abbott Derringer Award winner and author of Concrete Angel  "Expertly realized, finely crafted, Ron Scheer's third volume of How the West Was Written continues to delight, surprise and challenge me both as a casual reader and writer of Western fiction. It's not just firmly established in my top five go-to research books, it's one of my favorite books, period." --Richard Prosch Author of the "Holt County" Western series  "How the West Was Written is an essential volume for anyone interested in the history of the American west, particularly writers, historians, and those interested in language. Richard Wheeler provides an excellent introduction." --Bill Crider Macavity Award winner and author of Too Late to Die

How the West Was Written: Glossary

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Books by Scheer, Ron

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How the West Was Written: Frontier Fiction: 1907-1915

How the West Was Written: Frontier Fiction, 1880-1906

The Forager

How the West Was Written: Glossary