UI Press | Thomas H. Pauly | Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women

Zane Grey

His Life, His Adventures, His Women

Awards and Recognition:

Voted Best Biography in the 2007 inaugural Classic Angling magazine’s Book Awards.

The first accurate and thorough biography of the man behind the myths of the Old West

Zane Grey was a disappointed aspirant to major league baseball and an unhappy dentist when he belatedly decided to take up writing at the age of thirty. He went on to become the most successful American author of the 1920s, a significant figure in the early development of the film industry, and a central player in the early popularity of the Western.

Thomas H. Pauly's work is the first full-length biography of Grey to appear in over thirty years. Using a hitherto unknown trove of letters and journals, including never-before-seen photographs of his adventures--both natural and amorous--Zane Grey has greatly enlarged and radically altered the current understanding of the superstar author, whose fifty-seven novels and one hundred and thirty movies heavily influenced the world's perception of the Old West.

"Billed at his death as 'the greatest selling author of all time,' with his work exceeded in sales 'only by the Bible and the Boy Scout Handbook,' Zane Grey was as much a brand as a writer--a brand that would eventually come to encompass films, television series, [and] a monthly magazine. . . . And behind the brand stood the man: a self-made model of rugged rural virtue. . . . And also, as it turns out, quite the swinger. The revelations about Grey's blue cache of journals and photos--and about Grey's considerable harem of mistresses, who openly shared him with his wife and one another--make Thomas H. Pauly's biography a major correction to the wholesome image Grey enjoyed for almost a century."--Jonathan Miles, New York Times Book Review

"Although fans of Zane Grey may be taken aback to discover certain characteristics or traits of this famous writer, what emerges from Pauly's text is an honest and straightforward account of the charms and foibles of a man who defined and lived his life as he saw fit."--Journal of the West

"A solid, entertaining read. Highly recommended."--Choice

Thomas H. Pauly is a professor of English at the University of Delaware. He is the author of books on Elia Kazan and the historical background of the musical Chicago.

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