Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamlet53
I would dispute the contention that The Virginian was in any way the first western novel. Actually western "dime" novels were very popular throughout the latter half of the 19th Century. It's then when much of the western mythology got started; like the idea of frequent gun fights (it's unlikely the quick draw duel ever happened anywhere). Yes, the Native American population was hardly depicted fairly and that would not change well into the second half of the 20th Century. The same could be said to be true for other ethnic minorities (eg blacks & Asians) who if they were acknowledged to exist at all it was as racist caricatures.
If western novels are still so popular, and apparently they are, it certainly does not match what has happened in film and television. Before maybe about the mid 1960s westerns were one of the most popular genres on television and very good (eg The Searchers) and drek films were a staple. Pretty much entirely gone now.
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Hamlet, I meant to provide the Wikipedia link, but I forgot. So here it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Wister
If you disagree with the contentions that Wister was the father of the Western and that The Virginian was the first cowboy novel, please cite
with links your examples!
(By the way, Roy Huggins, the creator of Maverick, claimed that Maverick was so successful in making the old-fashioned western look silly that it put an end to the westerns' domination of television.
That may be true, but here we are 15 years into the 21st Century, and there is a cable TV channel which shows nothing but westerns!)