Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American writer. His novel The Virginian, published in 1902, helped create the cowboy as a folk hero in the United States and built Wister's reputation as the "father of Western fiction." He was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. The Western Writers of America renamed the Saddleman Award for best book of the year to the Owen Wister Award, and Mount Wister in Wyoming was named in his honor.

Early life and education

thumb|upright=1.1|Wister's birthplace at 5203 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia

Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician raised at "Butler Place" which adjoined Belfied, the Wister family estate in Germantown. His mother, Sarah Butler Wister, was the daughter of Fanny Kemble, a British actress.

Wister attended boarding schools in Switzerland and Britain. He studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and entered Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1878. He was a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter). Wister was also a member of the Porcellian Club, through which he became friends with Theodore Roosevelt. As a senior, Wister wrote the Hasty Pudding's then most successful show, Dido and Aeneas, whose proceeds aided in the construction of their theater. Wister graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1882.

He studied for two years at a Paris conservatory and wrote six operas. They were never produced and he gave up his dream of a career in music.

Wister traveled to the American West to improve his health due to an illness that caused him hallucinations, headaches, and vertigo.

thumb|Poster for the Broadway production of [[The Virginian (play)|The Virginian by Wister and Kirke La Shelle]]

In 1904, Wister collaborated with Kirke La Shelle on a successful stage adaptation of The Virginian that featured Dustin Farnum in the title role. Farnum reprised the role ten years later in Cecil B. DeMille's film adaptation of the play. The Virginian was the basis for five Western movies and was turned into a popular television show in the 1960s.

Wister moved away from writing Westerns, and his later work focused on biographies, including ones on Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington. and a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University. He was an associate member of the Boone and Crockett Club

Personal life

In 1898, Wister married Mary Channing, his second cousin. The couple had six children. Mary died during childbirth in 1913. Their daughter, Mary Channing Wister, married artist Andrew Dasburg in 1933.

thumb|right|Grave of Owen Wister, [[Laurel Hill Cemetery]]

Wister built an estate in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, named Crowfield, and died there He was interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Legacy

In 1958, Wister's daughter, Fenny Kemble Wister, published his letters and journals in Owen Wister Out West.

His diaries of life in Wyoming are kept at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming.

Mount Wister, just within the western boundary of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, is named for him.

Near a house that Wister built near La Mesa, California, but never occupied due to his wife's death, is a street called Wister Drive. In the same neighborhood are Virginian Lane and Molly Woods Avenue (named for a character in The Virginian). All of those streets were named by Wister himself.

Wister was admitted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2010.

  • A Journey in Search of Christmas (1904)
  • Lady Baltimore (1906)
  • Padre Ignacio: or, the Song of Temptation (1911)
  • Romney: And Other New Works about Philadelphia (written 1912–1915; published incomplete 2001) (1882); new edition, 1922
  • "Hank's Woman" (1892) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "How Lin McLean Went East" (1892) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
  • "Em'ly" (1893) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "The Winning of the Biscuit-Shooter" (1893) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
  • "Balaam and Pedro" (1894) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "The Promised Land" (1894) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "A Kinsman of Red Cloud" (1894) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "Little Big Horn Medicine" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
  • "Specimen Jones" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
  • "The Serenade at Siskiyou" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
  • "The General's Bluff" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
  • "Salvation Gap" (1894) (in Red Men and White)
  • "Lin McLean's Honey-Moon" (1895) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
  • "The Second Missouri Compromise" (1895) (in Red Men and White)
  • "La Tinaja Bonita" (1895) (in Red Men and White)
  • "A Pilgrim on the Gila" (1895) (in Red Men and White)
  • "Where Fancy Was Bred" (1896) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "Separ's Vigilante" (1897) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
  • "Grandmother Stark" (1897) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "Sharon's Choice" (1897) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "Destiny at Drybone" (1897) (incorporated into Lin McLean)
  • "Twenty Minutes for Refreshments" (1900) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "Padre Ignazio" (1900) (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "The Game and the Nation" (1900) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "Mother" (1901, 1907) (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
  • "Superstition Trail" (1901) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "In a State of Sin" (1902) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "The Vicious Circle" (1902) (in The Saturday Evening Post, December 13, 1902; later revised as Spit-Cat Creek)
  • "With Malice Aforethought" (1902) (incorporated into The Virginian)
  • "Stanwick's Business" (1904) (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
  • "The Jimmyjohn Boss" (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "Napoleon Shave-Tail" (in The Jimmyjohn Boss)
  • "Happy Teeth" (in Members of the Family)
  • "Spit-Cat Creek" (in Members of the Family)
  • "In the Back" (in Members of the Family)
  • "How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee" (1907) (Illus. Frederic Rodrigo Gruger) (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
  • "Timberline" (1908) (in Members of the Family)
  • "The Gift Horse" (1908) (in Members of the Family)
  • "Extra Dry" (1909) (in Members of the Family)
  • "Where It Was" (1911) (in Members of the Family)
  • "The Drake Who Had Means of His Own" (1911) (in Members of the Family)
  • "Safe in the Arms of Croesus" (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
  • "With the Coin of Her Life" (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
  • "The Honeymoonshiners" (in Safe in the Arms of Croesus)
  • "Bad Medicine" (in When West Was West)
  • "Captain Quid" (in When West Was West)
  • "Once Round the Clock" (in When West Was West)
  • "The Right Honorable, The Strawberries" (1928) (in When West Was West)
  • "Little Old Scaffold" (1928) (in When West Was West)
  • "Absalom of Moulting Pelican" (1928) (in When West Was West)
  • "Lone Fountain" (in When West Was West)
  • "Skip to My Loo" (in When West Was West)
  • "At the Sign of the Last Chance" (1928) (in When West Was West)

Essays

  • "Where Charity Begins" (1895)
  • "The Evolution of the Cow-Puncher" (1895)
  • "Concerning "Bad Men" The True "Bad Man" of the Frontier, and the Reasons for His Existence" (1901)
  • "Theodore Roosevelt, Harvard '80" (1901)
  • "The Open Air Education" (1902)
  • "After Four Years" (1905)
  • "High Speed English and American Railroad Flyers" (1906)
  • "The Keystone Crime: Pennsylvania's Graft-Cankered Capitol" (1907)
  • "According to a Passenger" (1919)
  • "How One Bomb Was Made" (1921)
  • "Roosevelt and the 1912 Disaster: A Friend Remembers - and Interprets" (1930)
  • "Roosevelt and the War: A Chapter of Memories" (1930)
  • "John Jay Chapman (Wister essay)|John Jay Chapman" (1934)
  • "In Homage to Mark Twain" (1935)
  • "Old Yellowstone Days" (1936)

Poetry

  • "The Pale Cast of Thought" (1890)
  • "From Beyond the Sea" (1890)
  • "Autumn on Wind River" (1897)
  • "In Memoriam" (1902)
  • Done In The Open (1902) (Illus. by Frederic Remington)
  • "Serenade" (1910)
  • Indispensable Information for Infants: Or Easy Entrance to Education (1921)

Operas

  • Dido and Aeneas (1892)
  • Kenilworth (unpublished)
  • Listen to Binks (unpublished)
  • Montezuma (unpublished)
  • Villon (unpublished)
  • Watch Your Thirst: A Dry Opera in Three Acts (1923)