dc.contributor.author	Jennings, John
dc.date.accessioned	2015-11-25T21:30:02Z
dc.date.available	2015-11-25T21:30:02Z
dc.date.issued	2015-11
dc.description.abstract	The cowboy, as perhaps no other figure, has captured the imagination of North Americans for over a century. Before Owen Wister's publication of The Virginian in 1902, the image of the cowboy was essentially that of the dime novel - a rough, violent, one-dimensional drifter, or the stage cowboy variety found in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. Wister's novel was to transform, almost overnight, this image of the cowboy. Soon after its publication, Wister sent a copy, inscribed "To the hero from the author," to Everett Johnson, a cowboy from Virginia who had been a friend of Wister's in Wyoming in the 1880s. Johnson had migrated to Alberta by the 1890s, eventually settling in the Calgary area. Before his death in 1946, his daughter-in-law, Jean Johnson, transcribed Everett's stories of the old west and collected them into a manuscript, now on deposit in the Glenbow Archives. In The Cowboy Legend, John Jennings, building on Jean Johnson's work, details the evidence that Everett Johnson was the initial and prime inspiration for Wister's cowboy, and in the process shows that Johnson led a fascinating life in his own right. His memories of both the Wyoming and Alberta cattle frontiers provide insight into ranch life on both sides of the border, and the compelling parallel biographies of Johnson and Wister feature vignettes of legendary period figures such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and Butch Cassidy, not to mention the best man at Johnson's wedding, Henry Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid. With an impressive range of scholarship and archival research, Jennings melds this realistic study of the cowboy frontier with an intriguing account of Wister's subsequent creation of the cowboy mystique, aided by two close friends and perhaps somewhat unexpected collaborators, Frederic Remington and Theodore Roosevelt. As compulsively readable as it is informative, this unique contribution to western history and literature will be welcomed by fans and scholars alike.	en_US
dc.description.refereed	Yes	eng
dc.description.sponsorship	The University of Calgary Press acknowledges the support of the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund for our publications. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Jennings, J. "The cowboy legend : Owen Wister’s Virginian and the Canadian-American frontier." West series; 7. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, 2015.	eng
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/31506
dc.identifier.isbn	978-1-55238-529-6
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/51022
dc.language.iso	en	en_US
dc.publisher	University of Calgary Press	eng
dc.publisher.institution	http://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781552385289	en_US
dc.publisher.url	http://press.ucalgary.ca/	eng
dc.relation.ispartofseries	West series;7
dc.rights	Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	*
dc.subject	Johnson, Everett, 1860-1946	eng
dc.subject	Cowboys–West (U.S.)–Social life and customs	eng
dc.subject	Cowboys–Alberta–Social life and customs	eng
dc.subject	Frontier and pioneer life–West (U.S.)–History	eng
dc.subject	Frontier and pioneer life–Alberta–History	eng
dc.subject	Wister, Owen, 1860-1938. Virginian	eng
dc.subject	Cowboys in literature	eng
dc.subject	Cowboys in popular culture	eng
dc.title	The cowboy legend : Owen Wister’s Virginian and the Canadian-American frontier	eng
dc.type	book

The cowboy legend : Owen Wister’s Virginian and the Canadian-American frontier

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