Classic Western Literature

Zane Grey is considered the first and best author of "Western" novels. In this book, Lin Sloan's obsession with capturing a wild stallion he called "Wildfire" almost costs him his life. Bostil is a man who loves fast horses and is used to getting what he wants. Throw in a beautiful girl just coming into womanhood, a crazed young man with a grudge against her, a treacherous act, horse thieves and a yearly big race and you have all the elements Zane Gray so ably weaves into a fascinating story packed with action and adventure.

Seen through the eyes of a French Catholic missionary, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a tale about the development of the 19th-century American Southwest as the Indians and Spanish deal with each other and the arriving Americans.

Hopalong Cassidy is an iconic western cowboy hero conceived by Clarence Mulford, but immortalized in a series of films starring William Boyd from 1935-1948. A tough-talking and violent character in the print novels, Cassidy was remade into a clean-cut hero who traveled the West with his sidekicks fighting villains who took advantage of the weak.

Clarence E. Mulford takes you back to the beginning by relating the stories (as told to him by Red and the boys of the BAR-20) of how Buck Peters started the BAR-20 ranch.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour becomes the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. While the area is American by law, it's still Mexican and Indian by custom and belief. During the years that follow, Latour tirelessly but gently spreads his faith while facing external and internal obstacles. Loosely based on the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy and the construction of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, this novel chronicles the events that occur after the capture of the southwest by American forces during the Mexican-American war.

Ob als scharfer Beobachter, zielstrebiger Spaziergänger, oder als Anekdoten erzählender Flaneur - in diesem Hörbuch nimmt der Autor Fritz Hessel den Hörer mit auf eine Reise in das facettenreiche, sich kolossal zu wandeln beginnende und vor Kontrasten nur so flimmernde Berlin der späten 20er Jahre. Staunend wie ein Kind und sammelnd wie ein Historiker lässt er die verschiedenen Welten und Zeiten dieser einzigartigen europäischen Metropole zusammenfließen ohne dabei grundlos ins Schwärmen zu geraten.

This Raging Bull Publishing Box Set contains four Western books by Charles Alden Seltzer, including: The Boss of the Lazy Y (1915) - Calumet Marston returns to his father's ranch to find it's being run by a young woman who remains in charge until he accepts sundry conditions. Coming of the Law (1912) - A young eastern newspaper man goes West to a small town and takes charge of a run-down newspaper, fights against an association of cattle rustlers for the benefit of the small ranchers, and wins. ’Drag’ Harlan and ’Firebrand’ Trevison are also included.

A collection of 14 western short campfire stories. Bandits, desperadoes, cattle, and bloody shoot-outs are just some of the highlights of these easy to listen to snippets which continued to mimic Andy's life on the cattle trail. Dell and Joel Wells are about to abandon their dead father's claim on Beaver Creek because it won't grow crops. Then unexpected events, and a drover seeking aid, allow them a decent chance in life. The boys develop their own ranch on the Beaver, without capital but with honor. No amount of savvy can entirely prepare them for the risks: cruel winters, rapacious wolf packs, summer droughts, mysterious Texas fever, or the shifting circumstances of the cattle trade.

The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days, was published in 1903. Even though it is a fictional book, the story is based exclusively on his personal experiences. He gives listeners a daily description of a cattle drive that he made from Texas to Montana. This authentic first-hand account has been described as "literature's best account of life as a cowboy," and is still one of the most treasured publications in the western genre, by both pleasure readers and historians.

IIn the summer of 1850, a topsail schooner slipped into the cove under the rocky promontory of Trinidad Head in California and dropped anchor at the edge of the kelp (algae)-fields. Fifteen minutes later her small-boat deposited on the beach a man armed with long squirrel-rifle and an axe, and carrying food and clothing in a brown canvas pack. From the beach he saw the schooner raise anchor and stand out to sea before the northwest trade winds. When it disappeared from his view, he swung his pack to his broad back and strode resolutely into the timber at the mouth of a little river.

Frederick Faust (pen name Max Brand) was said to have written in excess of twenty-five million words as he seemed to have a button to push to generate fictional ideas. Of course, it’s known that much of his work was issued under pen names, around twenty of them, a great many of them wild Westerns. This one that features a drifter named Donnegan. He gets off a train and takes on a job with a rich man who doesn’t seem to care much about the difference between rights and wrongs.

Die Geschichte führt in den Wilden Westen, wo der Jäger Tim Summerland dem Dichter Richard Forster das Leben rettet. Doch dies ist erst der Anfang des Abenteuers... Der Pfahlmann stammt aus dem Hörbuch Halbblut (Band 38 der Gesammelten Werke).

A raging flood in Missouri took the lives of a married couple who barely got their three-year-old son into a cradle that carried him downstream. The parents were drowned. A kind rancher managed to pull the makeshift device to shore and wound up calling the boy Dave and raising the youngster to manhood without a known family name. The savior didn’t officially adopt the boy but they behaved as a loving father and son in adult life. A scoundrel family discovered the truth and labeled the young man a “nameless nobody.”

In O Pioneers, we meet the Bergsons, a family of farmers in the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska who have emigrated to America from Sweden. When the family patriarch dies, the running of the farm falls to the eldest daughter, Alexandra, who struggles to make the farm viable and provide for the family. Eventually, the focus turns to the romantic entanglements of Alexandra and her brother as well as touching upon the enormous difficulties of running a farm at the turn of the last century.

So manchem Karl-May-Leser wird die Geschichte vertraut vorkommen und doch wieder nicht. May arbeitete seinen ersten großen Wildwest-Roman (noch vor dem "Schatz im Silbersee" geschrieben) mit deutlichen Veränderungen in den zweiten Teil seines "Winnetou" ein. Die unverfälschte Urfassung galt lange Zeit als verschollen und ist an vielen Stellen logischer und ausführlicher als die endgültige Buchversion.

The story you’re about to hear took place primarily in what is Southern Utah and has been called the quintessential Western, meaning simply it is a top-notch example of quality. It is composed of an extensive list of ingredients: adventure, action, violence, crisis, suspense, conflict, sentimentalism, and sex - they are all there. This classic of the Western genre was the kind of story the public clamored for, and author Zane Grey had great skill in supplying the desire.

With the civil war over, the president assassinated, and the South in reconstruction, Tyrell Thompsett knew the country would be crying for beef. His long-held dream was to have his own ranch and to follow in the footsteps of his father that started the first ranch in the Medicine Bow range of Wyoming territory. Now, with his new wife, a member of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, and his friend, Grey Wolf and his wife of the Mouache Ute, he set out to make that dream a reality.

Driven by grief over the loss of his beloved wife and child, Tyrell Thompsett left the home of his childhood in the Medicine Bow mountains and started south in a quest for a new life. With his long-time friend Grey Wolf, a warrior of the Yamparika Ute who was on his own quest, the two start the long trek to the Sangre de Cristo mountains and a new beginning.

Nophai, an extremely intelligent and talented "Indian with the mind of a white man" attempts to reacclimate into the world he left 18 years earlier. A task made more difficult by the fact he and a white woman have fallen in love. Corrupt missionaries and Indian agents only add to his conflict.

Young Texas Ranger Russ Sittell is undercover searching for the head of a gang of rustlers - working with his ranger mentor and idol, Vaughn Steele. Staying undercover is difficult. Both rangers have difficulty staying focused while falling in love - can they uncover the criminals and keep love in its rightful place? Zane Grey tells the story in The Rustlers of Pecos County.

Willis Lander was once the T-Bar ranch's best bronc buster. Then came the day when a stallion as black as pitch and as mean as a rattler shattered his knee. Unable to perform the duties required of a cowboy, Willis took the only job he felt capable of handling - minding the line shack 40 miles from the ranch - and secluded himself from the pity of his peers in the Wyoming wilderness. Now, the T-Bar is being sold, leaving Willis to wonder whether the new owner will want to keep a broken bronc buster on the payroll.