Owen Wister 
The Virginian 

‘The Virginian’ is Owen Wister’s classic novel of the Wild West. A highly fictionalized account of the Johnson County War, a dispute in 1890’s Wyoming between large cattle ranchers and smaller operators over land use. Rich with detail of the old Wild West frontier days, ‘The Virginian’ is at its core a study of the inherent nature of man drawn out by the savagery of the wilderness.