Incubator escapee wiki

Zane Grey

Article Discussion

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox writer Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author and dentist. He is known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book.

In addition to the success of his printed works, his books have second lives and continuing influence adapted for films and television. His novels and short stories were adapted into 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.<ref name="hulse-vii-x">Hulse 2007, pp. vii–x.</ref>

BiographyEdit

Early lifeEdit

Pearl Zane Grey was born January 31, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio. His birth name may have originated from newspaper descriptions of Queen Victoria's mourning clothes as "pearl grey".<ref>May 1997, p. 5.</ref> He was the fourth of five children born to Alice "Allie" Josephine Zane, whose English Quaker immigrant ancestor Robert Zane came to the American colonies in 1673, and her husband, Lewis M. Gray, a dentist.<ref>May 1997, p. 3.</ref> His family changed the spelling of their last name to "Grey" after his birth. Grey later dropped "Pearl" and used "Zane" as his first name.

Grey grew up in Zanesville, a city founded by his paternal grandfather Benjamin Zane's brother-in-law, John McIntire (husband of Sarah Zane), who had been given the land by Grey's maternal great-grandfather, Ebenezer Zane, an American Revolutionary War patriot.

Both Grey and his brother Romer were active and athletic boys who were enthusiastic baseball players and fishermen.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 17.</ref> From an early age, he was intrigued by history. Soon, he developed an interest in writing. His early interests contributed to his later writing success.<ref>Gruber 1969, pp. 6–7.</ref> For example, his knowledge of history informed his first three novels, which recounted the heroism of ancestors who fought in the American Revolutionary War.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 13.</ref>

As a child, Grey frequently engaged in violent brawls, probably related to his father's punishing him with severe beatings. Though irascible and asocial like his father, Grey was supported by a loving mother and found a father substitute. Muddy Miser was an old man who approved of Grey's love of fishing and writing, and who talked about the advantages of an unconventional life. Despite warnings by Grey's father to steer clear of Miser, the boy spent much time during five formative years in the company of the old man.<ref>May 1997, p. 2.</ref>

Grey was an avid reader of adventure stories such as Robinson Crusoe and the Leatherstocking Tales, as well as dime novels featuring Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick. He was enthralled by and crudely copied the great illustrators Howard Pyle and Frederic Remington.<ref>May 1997, p. 6.</ref> He was particularly impressed with Our Western Border, a history of the Ohio frontier that likely inspired his earliest novels.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 13.</ref> Grey wrote his first story, Jim of the Cave, when he was fifteen. His father tore it to shreds and beat him.<ref>May 1997, p. 7.</ref>

Because of the shame he felt as the result of a severe financial setback in 1889 due to a poor investment, Lewis Grey moved his family from Zanesville and started again in Columbus, Ohio.<ref>May 1997, p. 8.</ref> While his father struggled to re-establish his dental practice, Grey made rural house calls and performed basic extractions, which his father had taught him. The younger Grey practiced until the state board intervened. His brother Romer earned money by driving a delivery wagon.<ref name="gruber-26">Gruber 1969, p. 26.</ref> Grey also worked as a part-time usher in a theater and played summer baseball for the Columbus Capitols, with aspirations of becoming a major leaguer.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 22.</ref> Eventually, Grey was spotted by a baseball scout and received offers from many colleges. Romer also attracted scouts' attention and went on to have a professional baseball career.<ref name="gruber-26" />

University of Pennsylvania and baseballEdit

File:Zane Grey 1895.jpg
Grey at the University of Pennsylvania, 1895

Grey chose the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship; he studied dentistry, joined Sigma Nu fraternity, and graduated in 1896. When he arrived at Penn, he had to prove himself worthy of a scholarship before receiving it. He rose to the occasion by coming in to pitch against the Riverton club, pitching five scoreless innings and producing a double in the tenth, which contributed to the win.<ref>May 1997, p. 11.</ref> The Ivy League was highly competitive and an excellent training ground for future pro baseball players. Grey was a solid hitter and an excellent pitcher who relied on a sharply dropping curveball. When the distance from the pitcher's mound to the plate was lengthened by five feet to 60 feet 6 inches, in 1894 (primarily to reduce the dominance of Cy Young's pitching), the effectiveness of Grey's pitching suffered. He was re-positioned to the outfield.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 34.</ref> The short, wiry baseball player remained a campus hero on the strength of his timely hitting.<ref name="may-16">May 1997, p. 16.</ref>

He was an indifferent scholar, barely achieving a minimum average. Outside class, he spent his time on baseball, swimming, and creative writing, especially poetry.<ref name="may-16" /> His shy nature and his teetotaling set him apart from other students, and he socialized little. Grey struggled with the idea of becoming a writer or baseball player for his career, but unhappily concluded that dentistry was the practical choice.

During a summer break, while playing "summer nines" in Delphos, Ohio, Grey was charged with, and quietly settled, a paternity suit. His father paid the $133.40 cost and Grey resumed playing summer baseball. He concealed the episode when he returned to Penn.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 35.</ref>

Grey went on to play minor league baseball with several teams, including the Newark, New Jersey Colts in 1898<ref name="baseball-1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and also with the Orange Athletic Club for several years. His brother Romer Carl "Reddy" Grey (known as "R.C." to his family) did better and played professionally in the minor leagues. Zane Grey and Romer Grey played together as teammates for the 1895 Findlay Sluggers of the Interstate League. Romer played a single major league game in 1903 for the Pittsburgh Pirates.<ref name="baseball-2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

DentistryEdit

After graduating, Grey established his practice in New York City under the name of Dr. Zane Grey in 1896. It was a competitive area but he wanted to be close to publishers. He began to write in the evening to offset the tedium of his dental practice.<ref name="gruber-35">Gruber 1969, p. 35.</ref> He struggled financially and emotionally. Grey was a natural writer but his early efforts were stiff and grammatically weak. Whenever possible, he played baseball with the Orange Athletic Club in New Jersey, a team of former collegiate players that was one of the best amateur teams in the country.<ref name="gruber-35" />

Grey often went camping with his brother R.C. in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where they fished in the upper Delaware River. When canoeing in 1900, Grey met seventeen-year-old Lina Roth, better known as "Dolly." Dolly came from a family of physicians and was studying to be a schoolteacher.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 38.</ref>

Marriage and familyEdit

File:Zane Grey House, Lackawaxen, PA.jpg
The Zane Grey Museum in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania

After a passionate and intense courtship marked by frequent quarrels, Grey and Dolly married five years later in 1905. Grey suffered bouts of depression, anger, and mood swings, which affected him most of his life. As he described it, "A hyena lying in ambush—that is my black spell! I conquered one mood only to fall prey to the next ... I wandered about like a lost soul or a man who was conscious of imminent death."<ref>May 1997, pp. 22–22.</ref>

During his courtship of Dolly, Grey still saw previous girlfriends and warned her frankly,

But I love to be free. I cannot change my spots. The ordinary man is satisfied with a moderate income, a home, wife, children, and all that. ... But I am a million miles from being that kind of man and no amount of trying will ever do any good ... I shall never lose the spirit of my interest in women.<ref>Pauly 2005, pp. 53, 57.</ref>

After they married in 1905, Dolly gave up her teaching career. They moved to a farmhouse at the confluence of the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers, in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where Grey's mother and sister joined them. (This house, now preserved and operated as the Zane Grey Museum, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.) Grey finally ceased his dental practice to work full-time on his nascent literary pursuits. Dolly's inheritance provided an initial financial cushion.<ref>Gruber 1969, pp. 49–50.</ref>

Early writing careerEdit

File:Tse-ne-gat son of the Paiute Chief Polk Utah Summer 1914 by Zane Grey.jpg
Picture taken by Grey of Tse-ne-gat, one of the fighters during the Bluff War

While Dolly managed Grey's career and raised their three children, including son Romer Zane Grey, over the next two decades Grey often spent months away from the family. He fished, wrote, and spent time with his many mistresses. While Dolly knew of his behavior, she seemed to view it as his handicap rather than a choice. Throughout their life together, he highly valued her management of his career and their family, and her solid emotional support. In addition to her considerable editorial skills, she had good business sense and handled all his contract negotiations with publishers, agents, and movie studios. All of his income was split fifty-fifty with her; from her "share," she covered all family expenses.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 224.</ref> Their considerable correspondence shows evidence of his lasting love for her despite his infidelities and personal emotional turmoil.Template:Citation needed

The Greys moved to California in 1918. In 1920 they settled in Altadena, California, at a home later known as the '"Zane Grey Estate"'. The estate was destroyed in the January, 2025 Altadena Fire.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In Altadena Grey also spent time with his mistress Brenda Montenegro. The two met while hiking Eaton Canyon. Of her he wrote,

I saw her flowing raven mane against the rocks of the canyon. I have seen the red skin of the Navajo, and the olive of the Spaniards, but her ... her skin looked as if her Creator had in that instant molded her just for me. I thought it was an apparition. She seemed to be the embodiment of the West I portray in my books, open and wild.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

Grey summed up his feelings for the city: "In Altadena, I have found those qualities that make life worth living."<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 184.</ref>

With the help of Dolly's proofreading and copy editing, Grey gradually improved his writing. His first magazine article, "A Day on the Delaware," a human-interest story about a Grey brothers' fishing expedition, was published in the May 1902 issue of Recreation magazine.<ref>May 1997, p. 23.</ref> Elated at selling the article, Grey offered reprints to patients in his waiting room.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 44.</ref> In writing, Grey found temporary escape from the harshness of his life and his demons. "Realism is death to me. I cannot stand life as it is."<ref>May 1997, p. 22.</ref> By this time, he had given up baseball.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 42.</ref>

Grey read Owen Wister's great Western novel The Virginian. After studying its style and structure in detail, he decided to write a full-length work.<ref name="may-34">May 1997, p. 34.</ref> Grey had difficulties in writing his first novel, Betty Zane (1903). When it was rejected by Harper & Brothers, he lapsed into despair.<ref name="may-34" /> The novel dramatized the heroism of an ancestor, Betty Zane who had saved Fort Henry. He self-published it, perhaps with funds provided by his wife Dolly or his brother R. C.'s wealthy girlfriend Reba Smith.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 47.</ref> From the beginning, vivid description was the strongest aspect of his writing.<ref>May 1997, p. 39.</ref>

File:Blue book 191706.jpg
Grey's novel The Roaring U.P. Trail was serialized in Blue Book in 1917.

After attending a lecture in New York in 1907 at the Camp-Fire Club by Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones, western hunter and guide who had co-founded Garden City, Kansas, Grey arranged for a mountain lion-hunting trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.<ref>May 1997, p. 48.</ref> He brought along a camera to document his trips and prove his adventures. He also began the habit of taking copious notes, not only of scenery and activities but of dialogue.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 167.</ref> His first two trips were arduous, but Grey learned much from his companions on these adventures. He gained the confidence to write convincingly about the American West, its characters, and its landscape. Treacherous river crossings, unpredictable beasts, bone-chilling cold, searing heat, parching thirst, bad water, irascible tempers, and heroic cooperation all became real to him. He wrote, "Surely, of all the gifts that have come to me from contact with the West, this one of sheer love of wildness, beauty, color, grandeur, has been the greatest, the most significant for my work."<ref name="may-52">May 1997, p. 52.</ref>

Upon returning home in 1909, Grey wrote a new novel, The Last of the Plainsmen, describing the adventures of Buffalo Jones. Harper's editor Ripley Hitchcock rejected it, the fourth work in a row. He told Grey, "I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction."<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 77.</ref> Grey wrote dejectedly,

I don't know which way to turn. I cannot decide what to write next. That which I desire to write does not seem to be what the editors want ... I am full of stories and zeal and fire ... yet I am inhibited by doubt, by fear that my feeling for life is false.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 89.</ref>

The book was later published by the American magazine, Outing, which provided Grey some satisfaction. Grey next wrote a series of magazine articles and juvenile novels.<ref name="Pauly2007">Template:Cite book</ref>

With the birth of his first child pending, Grey felt compelled to complete his next novel, The Heritage of the Desert. He wrote it in four months in 1910. It quickly became a bestseller. Grey took his next work to Hitchcock again; this time Harper published his work, a historical romance in which Mormon characters were of central importance.<ref name="may-52" /> Grey continued to write popular novels about Manifest Destiny, the conquest of the Old West, and the behavior of men in elemental conditions.Template:Citation needed

Two years later Grey produced his best-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), his all-time best-seller, and one of the most successful Western novels in history.<ref>Gruber 1969, pp. 1, 105.</ref> Hitchcock rejected it, but Grey took his manuscript directly to the vice president of Harper, who accepted it. The novel had a sequel (The Rainbow Trail, in 1915), and was filmed five times (in 1918, 1925, 1931, 1941, and 1996; but in later film versions the villains are corrupt judges or lawyers, not Mormon polygamists).

Later careerEdit

File:SITE OF ZANE GREY'S LODGE IN GILA COUNTY.jpg
Site of Grey's cabin in Arizona
File:Zane Grey 1936 SLNSW.jpg
Grey with striped marlin, Bermagui, Australia, 1936 (photographer, T.C. Roughley)
File:Zane Grey in Australia.jpg
Grey at Koala Park holding a koala during a visit to Australia in December 1935

Zane Grey had become a household name; thereafter, Harper eagerly received all his manuscripts. Other publishers caught on to the commercial potential of the Western novel. Max Brand and Ernest Haycox were among the most notable of other writers of Westerns.<ref>Gruber 1969, pp. 108, 110.</ref> Grey's publishers paired his novels with some of the best illustrators of the time, including N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Douglas Duer, W. Herbert Dunton, W. H. D. Koerner, and Charles Russell.<ref name="may-83">May 1997, p. 83.</ref>

Grey had the time and money to engage in his first and greatest passion: fishing. From 1918 until 1932, he was a regular contributor to Outdoor Life magazine. As one of its first celebrity writers, he began to popularize big-game fishing. Several times he went deep-sea fishing in Florida to relax and to write in solitude.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 117.</ref> Although he commented that "the sea, from which all life springs, has been equally with the desert my teacher and religion", Grey was unable to write a great sea novel.<ref>May 1997, p. 120.</ref> He felt the sea soothed his moods, reduced his depressions, and gained him the opportunity to harvest deeper thoughts:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

Template:ErrorTemplate:Main other{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}

{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Over the years, Grey spent part of his time traveling and the rest of the year writing novels and articles. Unlike writers who could write every day, Grey would have dry spells and then sudden bursts of energy, in which he could write as much as 100,000 words in a month.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 214.</ref> He wrote longhand in pencil with little punctuation and his first draft was the final one. Punctuation was added later by secretaries when they were preparing the manuscript for publication. He encountered fans in most places. He visited the Rogue River in Oregon in 1919 for a fishing expedition, and fell in love with it. He returned in the 1920s, eventually setting up a cabin on the lower Rogue River. Grey captured the river's essence in two books: Tales of Freshwater Fishing and Rogue River Feud.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Other excursions took him to Washington state and Wyoming.<ref name="gruber-218">Gruber 1969, p. 218.</ref>

<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> From 1923 to 1930, he spent a few weeks a year at his cabin on the Mogollon Rim, in Central Arizona. After years of abandonment and decay, the cabin was restored in 1966 by Bill Goettl, a Phoenix air conditioning magnate. He opened it to the public as a free-of-charge museum. The Dude Fire destroyed the cabin in 1990. It was later reconstructed 25 miles away in the town of Payson.<ref name="gruber-218" />

During the 1930s, Grey continued to write, but the Great Depression hurt the publishing industry. His sales fell off, and he found it more difficult to sell serializations. He had avoided making investments that would have been affected by the stock market crash of 1929, and continued to earn royalty income, so he did better than many financially. Nearly half of the film adaptations of his novels were made in the 1930s.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 311.</ref>

From 1925 to his death in 1939, Grey traveled more and further from his family. He became interested in exploring unspoiled lands, particularly the islands of the South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia. He thought Arizona was beginning to be overrun by tourists and speculators.<ref>May 1997, p. 149.</ref> Near the end of his life, Grey looked into the future and wrote:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

The so-called civilization of man and his works shall perish from the earth, while the shifting sands, the red looming walls, the purple sage, and the towering monuments, the vast brooding range show no perceptible change.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 278.</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}

{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Reception by criticsEdit

The more books Grey sold, the more the established critics, such as Heywood Broun and Burton Rascoe, attacked him. They claimed his depictions of the West were too fanciful, too violent, and not faithful to the moral realities of the frontier. They thought his characters unrealistic and much larger-than-life. Broun stated that "the substance of any two Zane Grey books could be written upon the back of a postage stamp."<ref>May 1997, p. 157.</ref>

T. K. Whipple praised a typical Grey novel as a modern version of the ancient Beowulf saga, "a battle of passions with one another and with the will, a struggle of love and hate, or remorse and revenge, of blood, lust, honor, friendship, anger, grief—all of a grand scale and all incalculable and mysterious." However, he also criticized Grey's writing: "His style, for example, has the stiffness which comes from an imperfect mastery of the medium. It lacks fluency and facility."<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 258.</ref>

Grey based his work in his own varied first-hand experience, supported by careful note-taking, and considerable research.<ref>Gruber 1969, pp. 166–67.</ref> Despite his great popular success and fortune, Grey read the reviews and sometimes became paralyzed by negative emotions after critical ones.<ref>May 1997, p. 133.</ref>

In 1923, a reviewer said Grey's "moral ideas ... [were] decidedly askew." Grey reacted with a 20-page treatise, "My Answer to the Critics." He defended his intentions to produce great literature in the setting of the Old West.<ref>May 1997, p. 134.</ref> He suggested that critics should ask his readers what they think of his books, and noted actor and fan John Barrymore as an example. Dolly warned him against publishing the treatise, and he retreated from a public confrontation.Template:Citation needed

His novel The Vanishing American (1925), first serialized in The Ladies' Home Journal in 1922, prompted a heated debate. People recognized its Navajo hero as patterned after Jim Thorpe, a great Native American athlete. Grey portrayed the struggle of the Navajo to preserve their identity and culture against corrupting influences of the white government and of missionaries. This viewpoint enraged religious groups. Grey contended, "I have studied the Navaho Indians for 12 years. I know their wrongs. The missionaries sent out there are almost everyone mean, vicious, weak, immoral, useless men."<ref>May 1997, p. 138.</ref> To have the book published, Grey agreed to some structural changes. With this book, Grey completed the most productive period of his writing career, having laid out most major themes, character types, and settings.<ref name="may-143">May 1997, p. 143.</ref>

His Wanderer of the Wasteland is a thinly disguised autobiography.<ref>May 1997, p. 118.</ref> One of his books, "Tales of the Angler's El Dorado, New Zealand," helped establish the Bay of Islands in New Zealand as a premier game fishing area. Several of his later writings (e.g., Rangle River) were based in Australia.Template:Citation needed

FishingEdit

File:Zane Grey fishing.png
Zane and R.C. Grey showing off a small-mouth bass
File:Zane grey with tuna2.png
Grey holding a 57 lb. Chinook salmon with brother R.C. looking on

Grey co-founded the "Porpoise Club" with his friend, Robert H. Davis of Munsey's Magazine, to popularize the sport of hunting of dolphins and porpoises. They made their first catch off Seabright, New Jersey, on September 21, 1912, where they harpooned and reeled in a bottlenose dolphin.<ref>George Reiger, ed., The Best of Zane Grey, Outdoorsman: Hunting and Fishing Tales (Stackpole Books, 1992)</ref><ref name="pauly-149">Pauly 2007, p. 149.</ref>

Grey's son Loren claims in the introduction to Tales of Tahitian Waters that Zane Grey fished on average 300 days a year through his adult life. Grey and his brother R.C. were frequent visitors to Long Key, Florida, where they helped to establish the Long Key Fishing Club, built by Henry Morrison Flagler. Zane Grey was its president from 1917 to 1920. He pioneered the fishing of Boohoo fish (sailfish). Zane Grey Creek was named for him.<ref>Long Key, Keys History website</ref>

Grey indulged his interest in fishing with visits to Australia and New Zealand. He first visited New Zealand in 1926 and caught several large fish of great variety, including a mako shark, a ferocious fighter that presented a new challenge. Grey established a base at Otehei Bay, Urupukapuka Island in the Bay of Islands, which became a destination for the rich and famous. He wrote many articles in international sporting magazines highlighting the uniqueness of New Zealand fishing, which has produced heavy-tackle world records for the major billfish, striped marlin, black marlin, blue marlin and broadbill. A lodge and camp were established at Otehei Bay in 1927 called the Zane Grey Sporting Club. He held numerous world records during this time<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and invented the teaser, a hookless bait that is still used today to attract fish. Grey made three additional fishing trips to New Zealand. The second was January to April 1927, the third December 1928 to March 1929, and the last from December 1932 to February 1933.

Grey fished out of Wedgeport, Nova Scotia, for many summers.

Grey also helped establish deep-sea sport fishing in New South Wales, Australia, particularly in Bermagui, which is famous for marlin fishing. Patron of the Bermagui Sport Fishing Association for 1936 and 1937, Grey set a number of world records,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and wrote of his experiences in his book An American Angler in Australia.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

From 1928 on, Grey was a frequent visitor to Tahiti. He fished the surrounding waters several months at a time and maintained a permanent fishing camp at Vairao. He claimed that these were the most difficult waters he had ever fished, but from these waters he also took some of his most important records, such as the first marlin over Template:Convert.Template:Citation needed

Grey had built a getaway home in Santa Catalina Island, California, which still serves as the Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He served as president of Catalina's exclusive fishing club, the Tuna Club of Avalon.<ref>Pete Thomas, Pioneers on the angling front, The Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2003</ref>

DeathEdit

Zane Grey died of heart failure on October 23, 1939, aged 67 at his home in Altadena, California. He was interred at the Lackawaxen and Union Cemetery, Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

LegacyEdit

Literary worksEdit

Grey became one of the first millionaire authors.

Zane Grey was a major force in shaping the myths of the Old West; his books and stories were adapted into other media, such as film and TV productions. He was the author of more than 90 books, some published posthumously or based on serials originally published in magazines. His total book sales exceeded 40 million.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 143.</ref>

Grey wrote not only Westerns, but also two hunting books, six children's books, three baseball books, and eight fishing books.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 2.</ref> Many of them became bestsellers. It has been estimated he wrote more than nine million words in his career.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 3.</ref> From 1917 to 1926, Grey was in the top ten best-seller list nine times, which required sales of more than 100,000 copies each time.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 1.</ref> Even after his death, Harper had a stockpile of his manuscripts and continued to publish a new title yearly until 1963.<ref>May 1997, p. 151.</ref> During the 1940s and afterward, as Grey's books were reprinted as paperbacks, his sales exploded.Template:Citation needed

Erle Stanley Gardner, prolific author of mystery novels and the Perry Mason series, said of Grey:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

[He] had the knack of tying his characters into the land, and the land into the story. There were other Western writers who had fast and furious action, but Zane Grey was the one who could make the action not only convincing but inevitable, and somehow you got the impression that the bigness of the country generated a bigness of character.<ref>Gruber 1969, p. 213.</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}

{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Grey was the favorite writer of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.<ref name="Rhodes Scholars">Template:Cite book</ref>

Books published after his deathEdit

A 1950 newspaper article stated that Romer Zane Grey and his mother had completed work on Cahuenga Pass, one of Zane Grey's unfinished novels, and that a film treatment would be prepared.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1953 columnist Hedda Hopper reported that a proposed film project, Thirty Thousand on the Hoof, was based on one of the six unfinished Grey novels that had been completed by his wife.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hollywood and other mediaEdit

File:Zane Grey books to movies circa 1925.jpg
Grey books adapted into movies, circa 1925

Grey started his association with Hollywood when William Fox bought the rights to Riders of the Purple Sage for $2,500 in 1916.<ref>May 1997, p. 103.</ref> The ascending arc of Grey's career matched that of the motion picture industry. It eagerly adapted Western stories to the screen practically from its inception, with Bronco Billy Anderson becoming the first major western star.<ref>May 1997, p. 105.</ref> Legendary director John Ford was then a young stage hand and Tom Mix, who had been a real cowhand, was defining the persona of the film cowboy.<ref>May 1997, p. 106.</ref> The Grey family moved to California to be closer to the film industry and to enable Grey to fish in the Pacific.Template:Citation needed

After his first two books were adapted to the screen, Grey formed his own motion picture company. This enabled him to control production values and faithfulness to his books. After seven films he sold his company to Jesse Lasky who was a partner of the founder of Paramount Pictures. Paramount made a number of movies based on Grey's writings and hired him as advisor.<ref>May 1997, pp. 108–109.</ref> Many of his films were shot at locations described in his books.Template:Citation needed

In 1936 Grey appeared as himself in a feature film shot in Australia, White Death (1936). At the same time he provided a story that was filmed as Rangle River (1936).

Grey became disenchanted by the commercial exploitation and copyright infringement of his works. He felt his stories and characters were diluted by being adapted to film.<ref>May 1997, p. 110.</ref> Nearly 50 of his novels were converted into more than 100 Western movies.<ref name="gruber-4">Gruber 1969, p. 4.</ref> Shortly after Grey's death, the success of Fritz Lang's Western Union (1941), a film based on one of his books, helped bring about a resurgence in Hollywood westerns. Its costars were Randolph Scott and Robert Young. The period of the 1940s and 1950s included the great works of John Ford, who successfully used the settings of Grey's novels in Arizona and Utah.<ref>Pauly 2005, p. 312.</ref>

The success of Grey's The Lone Star Ranger (the novel was adapted into four movies: 1914, 1919, 1930 and 1942, and a comic book in 1949) and King of the Royal Mounted (popular as a series of Big Little Books and comics, later turned into a 1936 film and three film serials) inspired two radio series by George Trendle (WXYZ, Detroit). Later these were adapted again for television, forming the series The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon (Sgt. Preston of the Yukon on TV). More of Grey's work was featured in adapted form on The Zane Grey Show, which ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System for five months in the 1940s, and the "Zane Grey Western Theatre," which had a five-year run of 145 episodes.<ref name="gruber-4" />

Many famous actors got their start in films based on Zane Grey books. They included Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott, William Powell, Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen, Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple, and Fay Wray. Victor Fleming, later director of Gone with the Wind, and Henry Hathaway, who later directed True Grit, both learned their craft on Grey films.Template:Citation needed

Honors and awardsEdit

  • The National Park Service maintains his former home in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania as the Zane Grey Museum, a part of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River area.
  • Zanesville, Ohio, has a museum named in his honor, the National Road-Zane Grey Museum.
  • Zane Grey Terrace, a small residential street in the hillsides of Altadena, is named in his honor.
  • The Zane Grey Tourist Park in Bermagui, Australia.
  • "Zane Greys'" a headland at the western end of Matapaua Bay, New Zealand.
  • The Zane Grey Continuation School is located adjacent to Reseda High School in Reseda, Los Angeles, California.Template:Citation needed
  • Zane Grey room is located at the Sigma Nu – Beta Rho house in honor of where Zane Grey lived for part of his time at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Wilder Ranch State Park near Santa Cruz, California named the Zane Grey Trail after the author. Grey briefly worked as a ranch hand at Wilder Ranch.
  • Zane Grey Roadless Area (58,000 acres), along the Rogue River, is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Oregon, USA.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

WorksEdit

Works published posthumously after 1939 include original novels, sequels to earlier novels, and compilations and revisions of previously published novels. All western works were translated from English into Spanish by Editorial Juventud in 1959 for the CLASICOS Y MODERNOS collection.

BooksEdit

Year Title Genre Publisher Links Notes
1903 Betty Zane Historical Charles Francis Press IA Republished in 1974 as The Last Ranger
1906 The Spirit of the Border A.L. Burt Company Sequel to Betty Zane
1908 The Last of the Plainsmen Western Outing Publishing Inspired by Charles "Buffalo" Jones
1909 The Last Trail Historical A.L. Burt Company Sequel to The Spirit of the Border
The Short Stop Baseball A.C. McClurg
1910 The Heritage of the Desert Western Harper & Brothers
The Young Forester
1911 The Young Pitcher Baseball
The Young Lion Hunter Western
1912 Riders of the Purple Sage IA PG LibriVox
Ken Ward in the Jungle
1913 Desert Gold
1914 The Light of Western Stars
The Rangers of the Lone Star
The Lone Star Ranger
1915 The Rainbow Trail Sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage
1916 The Border Legion
1917 Wildfire
1918 The Roaring U.P. Trail
1919 The Desert of Wheat
Tales of Fishes Fishing
1920 The Man of the Forest Western Grosset & Dunlap
The Redheaded Outfield and other Baseball Stories Baseball Harper & Brothers
1921 The Mysterious Rider Western IA LibriVox
To the Last Man
1922 The Day of the Beast Fiction
Tales of Lonely Trails Adventure
1923 Wanderer of the Wasteland Western
Tappan's Burro
1924 The Call of the Canyon
Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon Adventure
Tales of Southern Rivers Fishing
1925 The Thundering Herd Western
The Vanishing American
Captives of the Desert
Tales of Fishing Virgin Seas Fishing
1926 Under the Tonto Rim Western
Tales of the Angler's Eldorado, New Zealand Fishing
1927 Forlorn River Western
Tales of Swordfish and Tuna Fishing
1928 Nevada Western Sequel to Forlorn River
Wild Horse Mesa
Don, the Story of a Lion Dog
Avalanche
Tales of Fresh Water Fishing Fishing
1929 Fighting Caravans Western
Stairs of Sand Sequel to Wanderer of the Wasteland
1930 The Wolf Tracker
The Shepherd of Guadaloupe
1931 Sunset Pass
Tales of Tahitian Waters Fishing
Book of Camps and Trails Adventure Partial re-print of Tales of Lonely Trails
1932 Arizona Ames Western
Robbers' Roost
1933 The Drift Fence
The Hash Knife Outfit Sequel to The Drift Fence
1934 The Code of the West
1935 Thunder Mountain
The Trail Driver Whitman Publishing
1936 The Lost Wagon Train Harper & Brothers
1937 West of the Pecos Whitman Publishing
An American Angler in Australia Fishing
1938 Raiders of Spanish Peaks Western
1939 Western Union Harper & Brothers
Knights of the Range
1940 Thirty Thousand on the Hoof Republished as Woman of the Frontier
Twin Sombreros Sequel to Knights of the Range
1942 Majesty's Rancho Sequel to Light of Western Stars
1943 Omnibus
1944 The Wilderness Trek
1946 Shadow on the Trail
1947 Valley of Wild Horses
1948 Rogue River Feud Fishing / Western
1949 The Deer Stalker Western
1950 The Maverick Queen
1951 The Dude Ranger
1952 Captives of the Desert
Adventures in Fishing Fishing Compilation of 1919-37 Fishing stories.
1953 Wyoming Western
1954 Lost Pueblo
1955 Black Mesa
1956 Stranger from the Tonto
1957 The Fugitive Trail
1958 Arizona Clan
1959 Horse Heaven Hill
1960 The Ranger and Other Stories Harper & Row
1961 Blue Feather and Other Stories
1963 Boulder Dam Historical HarperCollins
1974 The Adventures of Finspot Fishing D-J Books
1975 Zane Grey's Greatest Indian Stories Western Dorchester Publishing Includes original ending to The Vanishing American (1925)
The Buffalo Hunter Gunsmoke IA Compilation of Grey stories
1977 The Reef Girl Fishing Harper & Row
1978 Tales from a Fisherman's Log Hodder & Stoughton ZG in 2nd visit New Zealand - 1927.
1979 The Camp Robber and Other Stories Western Walter J. Black
1981 The Lord of Lackawaxen Creek Adventure Lime Rock Press
1982 Angler's Eldorado: Zane Grey in New Zealand Fishing Walter J. Black, Reed NZ Partial reprint of 1926 edition (first 10 chapters,) plus additional content. Australian edition has similar title but "South Pacific" replaces "New Zealand."
Lost in the Never Never Australian Novella Ian Henry Publishers And Silvermane in same volume
1994 George Washington, Frontiersman Historical University of Pennsylvania Press and Forge Books
1996 Last of the Duanes Western Gunsmoke Westerns Unabridged version of The Lone Star Ranger (1915)
2003 The Desert Crucible Leisure Books Unabridged version of The Rainbow Trail (1915)
2004 Tonto Basin Unabridged version of To the Last Man (1921)
2007 Shower of Gold Unabridged version of Desert Gold (1915)
2008 The Great Trek "Western" set in Australia Five Star Unabridged version of The Wilderness Trek (1944)
2009 Tales of the Gladiator Fishing ZG Collections Diary entries from Grey on Gladiator; 1920s, California fishing
2016 Tales of Florida Fishes Zane Grey's West Society Compilation of Grey stories

FilmsEdit

Between 1911 and 1996, 112 films were adapted from Grey's novels and stories. In addition, three television series included episodes adapted from his work, including Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1956–58).<ref name="hulse-vii-x" />

Template:Div col

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> novel In the Days of Thundering Herd

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> story

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> novel

Template:Div col end

See alsoEdit

Template:Portal

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

BibliographyEdit

Template:Refbegin

Template:Refend

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

Template:Sister project links Sources

Archival materials

|CitationClass=web }}

Other

  • {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }} 

 | name/{{#if:{{#invoke:ustring|match|1=0340719|2=^nm}}
   | Template:Trim/
   | nm0340719/
   }}
 | {{#if: {{#property:P345}}
   | name/Template:First word/
   | find?q=%7B%7B%23if%3A+Zane+Grey%0A++++++%7C+Zane+Grey%0A++++++%7C+%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D%0A++++++%7D%7D&s=nm
   }}
 }}{{#if: 0340719  {{#property:P345}} | {{#switch: 
 | award | awards = awards Awards for | biography | bio = bio Biography for
 }}}} {{#if: Zane Grey
 | Zane Grey
 | Template:PAGENAMEBASE
 }}] at IMDb{{#if: 0340719{{#property:P345}}
 | Template:EditAtWikidata
 | Template:Main other

}}{{#switch:{{#invoke:string2|matchAny|^nm.........|^nm.......|nm|.........|source=0340719|plain=false}} 

 | 1 | 3 =  Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning
 | 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning

}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb name with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | id | name | section }}

|CitationClass=web }}

Template:Zane Grey Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Zane_Grey&oldid=143501"