Zane Grey

Born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1872, Zane Grey was trained as a dentist and practiced in New York before committing himself to writing. His early novel Betty Zane, based on family history, pointed him toward the frontier material that would make him famous.

Grey became one of the best-known American storytellers of the early twentieth century, and his novels played a major role in shaping the modern Western. Riders of the Purple Sage, published in 1912, became his best-known book, and many of his stories were later adapted for film.

He was also an enthusiastic outdoorsman, especially devoted to fishing and travel, and those experiences helped give his fiction its strong sense of place and adventure. Grey died in 1939, but his books remain central to the history of popular Western writing.