pened to stop at the house of friend whom I hadn't seen in some time.
He lived in a sprawling ranch house deep in the cottonwood and purple
sage country that Grey had known so intimately. After he had shown
me around the place, we stepped into the living room. In one corner I
noticed several bookshelves of Zane Grey books in their familiar beige,
blue, and red jackets, which were reprints published by the Walter
Black Company. I commented on their good condition. My friend ex-
plained that his father had passed the books down to him and that he
remained an avid reader of Grey. As he talked, I quickly became aware
of the enduring Grey mystique.

When I began writing this book, I often reflected on those shelves of
books, in that particular living room, in that rolling sage region, and my
friend extolling the qualities of Zane Grey as if he were describing the
virtues of a Ming vase or a Rembrandt etching. Those silent shelves of
books became a kind of symbolic testament to Grey's persistent leg-
end. This is the legend that I wished to probe in this book. How, after
nearly a hundred years of enduring critical scorn, did a popular writer
still cling to the public imagination?

One answer seems to be that the land itself chooses the best and
worst qualities of its writers and artists. Although it is ultimately un-
definable, the American West has a unique place in American letters.
For one thing, it is the only region, except perhaps for the South, that
comes with the imposing definitives "the" and "American." The Amer-
ican West. What tonnage. Even in our language, we refer to the West as
a special place: a place that is not only part of our territory and our his-
tory, but part of our imagination as well. It is this place which chose
Zane Grey as its spokesman. And for all his defects as a writer, few of
his admirers have voiced objections over the years.

Zane Grey appeared in American literature just about the time the
frontier era was ending and the vivid memories of it were just begin-
ning to coalesce. Grey never really considered himself simply a writer
of westerns, nor was the western his chief influence. Although he kept
tabs on other Western writers, he claimed the great European and east-
ern American authors -- Wordsworth, Hugo, Conrad, Hawthorne, and

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