Zane Gray

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Zane Gray
Zane Gray, 1895
Zane Gray in Australia, before 1933

Zane Gray , actually Pearl Zane Gray (born January 31, 1872 in Zanesville , Ohio , † October 23, 1939 in Altadena , California ) was an American writer who was best known for his Wild West novels .

Life

Zane Gray was born in Zanesville, a small town in Ohio that his great-grandfather Ebenezer Zane founded, studied dentistry and practiced as a dentist . After getting to know the American West while traveling, he began to be interested in life in this region and the history of the West. He was able to publish his first article in a magazine as early as 1902 , but it will be a few years before his first great success as a writer. His novel The Heritage of the Desert was published in 1910 and became a bestseller. In the next few years, one success followed another, including such well-known works as The Riders of the Purple Sage (1912, later namesake for the band New Riders of the Purple Sage ) or The Border Legion , which were enthusiastically received by the audience and often also have been filmed several times.

Gray became a bestselling author and the most important representative of the American Western in the first four decades of the 20th century.

Mostly he wrote novels that romanticized life in the western United States , that portrayed the conquest of the West from the point of view of whites, but that also provided an at least partially accurate picture of the historic West. In addition to the Wild West novels, Gray published numerous other books, e.g. B. About fishing and angling.

His books almost always appeared in magazines or pulp magazines and were often reprinted as serial novels in newspapers after the book was published . From 1927 ( Die Grenzlegion , originally The Border Legion ), a large number of his works were also translated into German and also reached a wide audience here.

Zane Gray, who had published more than 90 books, numerous short stories and articles in magazines, died on October 23, 1939. By that time, more than 27 million of his books had been sold.

Artistic creation

Zane Gray was one of the most important western writers ever. His works had millions of copies in the USA and the translations into other languages ​​were also very successful. There were also numerous film adaptations of his books in which Randolph Scott and George Montgomery, among others , played the leading roles.

The novels show Grey's love for the landscapes and the people of the West, they often offer a romantic love story and are nowhere near as action-oriented as modern western novels. They mostly follow traditional narrative patterns, whereby it should be emphasized that Gray often presented the city dwellers of the American East with the West and its concepts of honor and morality as a positive counter-image.

Grey's biographer Frank Gruber - himself a successful western and crime writer - writes that The Riders of the Purple Sage and The UP Trail are the best westerns he has ever read.

In Germany, Grey's novels were mostly published in book form ( Wild West novels ), but occasionally also as penny books . The translations were often shortened. Grey's German publishers included Knaur , AWA , Heyne and Bastei . The films also often found their way into German cinemas or on German television screens.

Works (selection)

Fishing stories

  • Tales of fishes . Harper, New York 1919.
  • Tales of southern rivers . Harper, New York 1924.
  • Tales of fishing virgin seas . Harper, New York 1925.
  • Tales of the angler's Eldorado, New Zealand . Harper, New York 1926.
  • Tales of the fresh water fishing . Harper, New York 1926.

Sports novels

  • The short stop . Harper, New York 1906.
  • The young pitcher . Harper, New York 1911.
  • The redheaded outfield and other baseball stories . Harper, New York 1920.

Wild west novels

  • Betty Zane . 1903.
    • German: Betty Zane . Heyne, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-453-20390-9 .
    • German: Betty Zane. The hero girl of Fort Henry . Deutscher Literatur-Verlag, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-87152-079-9 . (EA Berlin 1928)
  • Spirit of the border . 1906.
    • German: men of the border . Ibis-Verlag, Vienna 1950 (EA Berlin 1930)
    • German: men of the border . Heyne, Munich 1965 (EA Munich 1952)
  • The last of the plainsmen . 1908.
    • German: The last one, the prairie hunter . Knaur, Berlin 1930.
    • German: The last prairie hunter . Heyne, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-453-20200-7 . (EA Munich 1952)
  • The last trail . 1906.
    • German: The last trace . Knaur, Berlin 1930.
    • German: The last trace . Heyne, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-453-20497-2 (EA Munich 1952)
  • The heritage of the desert . 1910.
    • German: The legacy of the wild . Knaur, Berlin 1930.
    • German: The legacy of the wild . Heyne, Munich 1973 (EA Munich 1953)
  • The riders of the purple sage . 1912.
    • German: The law of the Mormons . Knaur, Berlin 1928.
    • German: The law of the Mormons . AWA-Verlag, Munich 1952.
  • Desert gold . 1913.
    • German: desert gold . Knaur, Berlin 1929.
    • German: desert gold . Heyne, Munich 1971.
  • The light of western stars . 1914.
    • German: Under the light of the western stars . Knaur, Berlin 1929.
    • German: Under the light of the western stars . AWA-Verlag, Munich 1952.
  • The Lone Star Ranger . 1915.
    • German: The Texas rider . Heyne, Munich 1967 (EA Munich 1954)
    • German: The Texas rider . Knaur, Berlin 1927.
  • The rainbow trail . 1915.
    • German: Following the rainbow . Knaur, Berlin 1930.
    • German: Following the rainbow . Heyne, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-453-20485-9 (EA Munich 1953)
  • The border legion . 1916.
    • German: The border legion . Knaur, Berlin 1931.
    • German: The border legion . Heyne, Munich 1968 (EA Munich 1952)
  • Wildfire . 1917.
    • German: wild fire . AWA-Verlag, Munich 1953.
  • The UP trail . 1918.
    • German: The iron way . Knaur, Berlin 1927.
    • German: The iron way . AWA-Verlag, Munich 1953.

Work editions

  • Works . Black Books, Roslyn, NY 1910/46 (60 vol.)

Film adaptations

  • Lynn Reynolds (Director): The Avenger. 1925 (based on "Riders of the Purple Sage")
  • Otho Lovering (Director): The Valley of Death. 1935 (based on "Wanderer of the Wasteland")
  • Charles Barton (Director): The Wyoming Casino . 1937 (after "Born to West")
  • Charles Barton (Director): Under a false name. 1937 (after "Forlorn River")
  • Fritz Lang (Director): Ogalalla attack . 1941 (after "Western Union")
  • George Waggner (director): Avengers without weapons. 1947 (after "Twin Sombreros")
  • Lew Landers (Director): The Colt is loose. 1947 (after "Thunder Mountain")
  • George Sherman (Director): The Red Gorge. 1949 (after "Wildfire")
  • Joseph Kane (Director): The Last Indian. 1955 (based on "The Vanishing American")
  • Sidney Salkow (Director): Desperados. 1955 (after "Robber's Roost")
  • Joseph Kane (Director): The Devil of Colorado. 1956 ("The Maverick Queen")
  • Charles Haid (director): Lassiter, merciless and dangerous (based on "Riders of the Purple Sage"). 1996.

literature

  • Christine Bold: Selling the Wild West. Popular Western Fiction 1860-1960 . University Press, Bloomington, Ind. 1987, ISBN 0-253-35151-0 .
  • John Donahue: Who's who in the western fiction of Zane Gray . McFarland, Jefferson, NC 2008, ISBN 978-0-7864-3170-0 .
  • GM Farley: Zane Gray, a documented portrait. The man, the bibliography, the filmography . Portals Press, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 1986, ISBN 0-916620-78-6 .
  • Carol Gay: Zane Gray. Story Teller (Ohio Authors). The State Library of Ohio, Columbus 1979.
  • Frank Gruber: Zane Gray. A biography . Black Books, Roslyn, NY 1969.
  • Ed Hulse: Filming the west of Zane Gray . Riverwood Press, Burbank 2007, ISBN 978-1-880756-09-6 .
  • Carlton Jackson: Zane Gray. Twayne, Boston, Mass. 1989. (= Twayne's United States authors series; 218) ISBN 0-8057-7543-9 .
  • Jean Karr: Zane Gray. Man of the west . Greenberg Books, New York 1949.
  • Stephen J. May: Zane Gray. Romancing the West. Ohio University Press, Athens 1997, ISBN 0-8214-1181-0 .
  • Thomas H. Pauly: Zane Gray. His life, his adventures, his women. Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill. et al. 2005, ISBN 0-252-03044-3 .
  • Ann Ronald: Zane Gray (Boise State University Western Writers Series; Volume 17). University Press, Boise, Id. 1975, ISBN 0-88430-016-1 .
  • Norris F. Schneider: Zane Gray. The man, whose books made the west famous . Self-published, Zanesville, Ohio 1967.
  • Kenneth W. Scott: Zane Gray. Born to the West. A reference guide. Hall, Boston, Mass. 1979, ISBN 0-8161-7875-5 .
  • Jane Tomkins: West of Everything. The inner life of westerns . University Press, New York 1992, ISBN 0-19-507305-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Translated by Hansheinz Werner.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Translated by Paul Baudisch.
  3. ^ Translated by Otto Ebstein.

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Gray, Zane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gray, Pearl Zane
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Zanesville , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1939
Place of death Altadena , California