Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women

by Thomas H. Pauly

Book Overview

The first accurate and thorough biography of the man behind the myths of the Old West

Zane Grey was a disappointed aspirant to major league baseball and an unhappy dentist when he belatedly decided to take up writing at the age of thirty. He went on to become the most successful American author of the 1920s, a significant figure in the early development of the film industry, and central to the early popularity of the Western.

Grey's personal life was as colorful as his best novels. Two backcountry trips into the Grand Canyon inspired his first Westerns, and he returned to Arizona annually for many years. His matching passion for sport fishing carried him to Mexico, Nova Scotia, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Australia. These trips were a canvas for the striking contradictions in Grey's life. Though he celebrated chastity and romantic love in his novels and his marriage was crucial to his success, these ideals were sorely tested by his long separations, deep depressions, and multiple involvements with women. Likewise his popularization of hunting, fishing, and the latest equipment threatened the wilderness that he revered and campaigned to protect.

Thomas H. Pauly's work is the first full-length biography of Zane Grey to appear in over thirty years. Using a hitherto unknown trove of letters and journals, including never-before-seen photographs of his adventures--both natural and amorous--Zane Grey will greatly enlarge and radically alter the current understanding of the superstar author, whose fifty-seven novels and one hundred and thirty movies heavily influenced the world's perception of the Old West.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252030443
• ISBN13: 9780252030444
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.5"
• Age Range: 13 to 18 years

Customer Reviews

A Life on the Edge

As a long time devoted Zane Grey fan, this book confirmed much of what I had already known about the man, and did not diminish any respect I had for him as a writer. Thomas Pauly indeed has done a magnificent job in collecting and compiling a massive amount of information into an entertaining and informative book about a man who lived the life of adventurer, writer, and sportsman. For those who want to know more about Zane Grey this book will give you all of the details, both good and bad, his strengths, his weaknesses, as husband, father, family man, and much much more. And as the title suggests, Zane Grey was involved with many women over the years, and it has just been in the last few years this facet of his life has become known officially. There had been hints of this activity but the family managed to keep it secret believing it would hurt his image and consequently sales of his books. Instead, I believe, it has only opened Zane Grey up to many more people and created an interest in him and his novels. This is a marvelous biography. I do wish it had included a complete bibliography, as the best source named in the book is impossible to find.