Riders of the Purple Sage

Riders of the Purple Sage

Zane Grey

Dover Publications. First published 1912.

Though this book has probably served as a kind of model for numerous writers of Western novels, including Oliver Strange and Max Brand, it differs in one key respect from all of them. It has a woman at the centre of the story, and the male characters all either help her or hinder her in her efforts to save and keep the family ranch. Jane Withersteen is the young (and of course beautiful) heroine who is left all alone to manage her father's ranch. She has a small bunch of loyal cowboys, younger than even her, who can be trusted to do as she bids, but who cannot be relied upon to face down the advances of the local chieftain, a Mormon 'Elder' called Tull. Tull wants to add Jane to his religiously sanctioned harem, and her farm to his already extensive property. Then Lassiter rides in. He is a gunman, initally disdained as an immoral criminal by Jane and her men, and indeed also by Tull and his men. But he stands up to the depredations of Tull and thereby gains Jane's respect, and eventually her love. In the end, she has to flee the country in his company, leaving the ranch behind for the powerful Mormon church to annexe, though Tull and all his men are killed.

There are extensive descriptions of the pastureland (overgrown with purple sage bushes) on which the action takes place, and much of the Wild West way of life described here is familiar to me from books and movies, all produced later, and probably leading off from this one. Even some of the specific locations and the actions connected with them are familiar. There is, for example, a hidden valley, accessible by only a narrow, hidden path over the mountain, with a small gold mine in the middle, where a couple of the lesser characters, Bess and Venters, spend a season, resting from illness and injuries and hoarding up the little gold that the mine yields. This scene invokes deja vu - 'Mackenna's Gold' and one of the 'Sudden' novels come to mind. Likewise, a large rock, balancing at the edge of a cliff, plays a crucial role in the final denouement, again a feature that has appeared in many books and movies - including the 2015 movie 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. 

But compared to the later Wild West books and movies, the action is slow, and the gunfights barely worthy of that name. There is none of the business of two strong men coming face to face on Main Street to match their gun-play skills at high noon. But it deserves its status of a minor classic, being, probably, among the very first books of the genre of the 'Western'.