Owen Wister 
The Virginian [EPUB ebook] 

Owen Wister (1860-1938) was an American writer whose novel The Virginian (1902) helped establish the western as a literary genre. Born into privilege, Wister graduated from Harvard Law school in 1888 and was a lifelong friend of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. After his writings inspired by his Western vacations enjoyed a positive reception in Harper’s, he quit his job as an attorney to write full-time. The unnamed protagonist in The Virginian set the tone for the rough but civilized cowboy, a prototype for scores of ensuing books, films, and music that popularized the mythology of the American wild west.