Riders of the Purple Sage (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

by Zane Grey (Author), Lee Clark Mitchell (Editor) "A sharp clip-clop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage..." (more)
Key Phrases: red herd, intersecting cañons, sombrero round, Jane Withersteen, Black Star, Miss Withersteen (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Excellent introduction by Lee Clark Mitchell, that confirms Zane Grey was never anecdotal: this novel is much more than just a Western. Georges-Claude Guilbert, Universite Francois Rabelais Tours

Review

"[A] well-handled melodramatic story of hairsbreadth escapes." --Booklist

"Poignant in its emotional qualities." --The New York Times

"A powerful work, exceedingly well written." --The Brooklyn Eagle

"Episodes of bravery, scoundrelism, chivalry, horsemanship, and ready shooting...make up the body of his story." --The New York World

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192833251
• ISBN-13: 978-0192833259
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,648,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More purple than sage, but worth reading, February 27, 2003

By	Peter Reeve (Thousand Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Riders of the Purple Sage (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

If you are not an aficionado of the Western novel but would like to sample the genre, then you should try one or more of the three great classics; Jack Schaefer's "Shane", Owen Wister's "The Virginian" , and this novel by Zane Grey. Of the three, "Shane" has the most literary merit and is the only one with claims to being great literature. "The Virginian" is often regarded as the first true representative of the genre, establishing as it does many of the great archetypal characters and incidents of Western myth, and "Riders of the Purple Sage" remains the best-selling Western.

"Riders" has two very remarkable features. The first is the surprising complexity and mythic depth of the story. There is for example, a Garden of Eden theme, with two of the characters isolated for an extended time in a lush wilderness. This is so strikingly like the Emil Zola novel "La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret" (The Abbe Mouret's Sin) that one wonders if Grey had read and been inspired by that work. Interwoven with this is an Oedipal theme. If all of this sounds a bit much for a cowboy yarn, I can only say that it really is all there.

The other remarkable thing about the book is its attitude toward the Mormon religion. The hero is an avowed "killer of Mormons". The LDS church is depicted as essentially brutal and tyrannical. This, I suppose, reflects a prejudice of the time, but I wonder how present-day members of that church regard this novel.

It has to be said that Grey is not a great writer and in particular, he cannot do dialogue. In fact, the dialogue in the first few pages is so appalling that I nearly gave up on the book there and then. However, I'm glad I stuck with it. It is such a fine and strange story and has such a wonderful sense of place.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the truly great Westerns, December 18, 2000

By	Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Her father's death has left Jane Withersteen in possession of the richest land holding in the Cottonwoods, a Mormon village on the 1871 Utah frontier. Most importantly, Amber Spring runs through her property and so she controls the water supply that makes possible the rolling fields of purple sage. But now the Mormon church wants to gain contol of the spring by forcing an unwilling Jane to marry Elder Tull. They've been steadily increasing the pressure on her and as the novel opens, Tull and his henchmen have come to arrest Venters, the Gentile foreman on her ranch. Outnumbered and outgunned, Jane prays for deliverance. Just as Tull is about to whip Venters, a rider in black appears--Lassiter, the scourge of the Mormons.

Lassiter is an archetype of the mythic Western hero. In him we see the origins of both Shane and Ethan Edwards (from The Searchers, Amos in the novel)--a lone gunmen fighting for Justice, he has descended upon Mormon Utah with a vengeance, obsessively searching for the sister who was kidnapped by a Mormon proselytizer.

Jane takes him on as a ranch hand, but makes him swear to forsake violence. Inevitably (as in High Noon), events force her to release him from his oath.

Despite an extremely harsh view of Mormons, this is one of the truly great Westerns; a must read.

GRADE: A

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riders of the Purple Sage is a good read!, April 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Riders of the Purple Sage (Mass Market Paperback)

In Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey takes the reader to the small Mormon town in Utah called Cottonwoods. The novel is set in the 1870's. The novel is centered on the life of Jane WIthersteen, whose father was the founder and center of the town. Jane faces many troubles in Cottonwoods. The main one is that her cattle have been stolen by Oldring and his gang. Another is that Jane is pressured by the townspeople because she allows Gentiles to live there. She is torn between her feelings and her religion until a stranger, Lassiter, comes riding into town searching for the answers to a secret that only Jane knows the answer to.

Jane is the main character in the book. This book is different because most westerns do not center around the life of a woman. Most westerns are focused on the rough, tough, cowboy who shoots people and lives on the edge to survive. Jane is different. Her father founded the town she lives in and she keeps the town going. She is like the head of the town. She owns almost everything in the town and the landscape around it. She is very wealthy and has no biases. She likes who she likes because of who they are, not what their religion is, like the rest of the town does. The town hates that she acts like that. Jane takes Lassiter in and answers his questions about the secret. I really like that the author uses a woman in this novel because it gives a whole different perspective to a western. Most westerns focus on the cowboy and his journeys, but this book focuses on a woman, Jane, throughout the book and the troubles she encounters living in the West. It gives us a perspective of what women may have been like in the West. It still has the rough, tough cowboy, but he is not the only focus in the book. There is more happening than just the journey of a cowboy.

This book was also a pleasure to read because it does a good job of describing the landscape around Cottonwoods and in the sage. Some westerns give the reader an idea of the landscape, but this book focuses on the landscape and uses it in the book. For instance, Venters travels into the sage and hides behind the rock and in holes in the mountains and terrain around him. The landscape is used throughout the book when the characters are faced with problems such as the one described above with Venters. The landscape helped to hide him. I think it was clever to bring the landscape in and use it as part of the story. Alot of westerns do not use the landscape, they just describe it to give the reader a setting and an idea of the landscape in the book.

The book is a typical western though, because Lassiter is a typical cowboy. He has a deep secret and is in search of answers to that secret. He is a stranger that comes riding into town. He sleeps in the sage under the stars and will not sleep inside. He is on a mission and is not going to let anything or anyone get in his way. Most westerns have the cowboy meet a woman as in this story.

Overall, I think this is a good book for all sorts of readers. Zane Grey is a good writer who includes aspects for all kinds of readers. Riders of the Purple Sage is an action pact, mystery solving, all around good book for anyone who is in the mood for a western.