This book began as a question about the origins of the cowboy western ... how it grew from Owen Wister's bestseller, The Virginian (1902), to Zane Grey's first novels a decade later. A reading of frontier fiction from that period, however, soon reveals that the cowboy western was only one of many different kinds of stories being set in the West. Besides novels about ranching and the cattle industry, writers wrote stories about railroads, mining, timber, the military, politics, women's rights, temperance, law enforcement, engineering projects, homesteaders, detectives, preachers and, of...

During the years 1907-1915, frontier fiction boomed with new writers, and the success of Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902) began to make itself felt in their work. That novel had made the bestseller lists for two years running. With the continued popularity of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show, and the appearance of one-reeler westerns on movie screens, many featuring the adventures of Bronco Billy Anderson, the cowboy hero was becoming an established mythic figure in the public imagination. For writers of popular fiction, the frontier was also a subject for exploring ideas drawn from...

It's been thirty years since the economy collapsed, and all Dillon has ever known is a world without electricity or medicine, living in a community constantly under the threat of starvation as they struggle to feed the rest of the country. Orphaned and alone, unsure of his future, Dillon serves as a lookout, watching for the bands of Scavengers that prey on towns like his-while also trying to keep away from the mayor's twin sons, who are bent on terrorizing him. When a Forager rides into town, he opens Dillon's eyes to the possibility of another life for himself. And when a Scavenger attack...