Best Western Novels

Western Writers of America

At the turn of the century, the Western Writers of America compiled a list of the best westerns of the 20th Century. A panel voted on the best and they are listed in order of most to least votes.

	Jack Warner Schaefer. Shane In the summer of 1889, a mysterious and charismatic man rides into a small Wyoming valley, where he joins homesteaders who take a stand against a bullying cattle rancher, and where he changes the lives of a young boy and his parents.
	Larry McMurtry. Lonesome Dove A love story and an epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last, defiant wilderness of America. Richly authentic, beautifully written, Lonesome Dove is a book to make readers laugh, weep, dream and remember.
	A.B. Guthrie. The Big Sky With its living picture of the frontier, its stark and beautiful scenery and its extraordinary people, The Big Sky puts a name to the Western legend. This first volume of Guthrie's six Big Sky novels lays the foundation for an unforgettable journey.
	Elmer Kelton. The Time It Never Rained The earth lay dying. Crops dried up, and fertile soil dissolved into clouds of yellow. Ranchers did everything within their power, and federal forces were called in fruitlessly. Only Charlie Flagg, old-time Texas cattleman, saw it as a fight worth continuing--and refused to give up his battle against Nature.
	Owen Wister. The Virginian This classic tells the story of the Wyoming ranch foreman known only as the Virgianian, his courtship of school teacher Molly Starkwood, and his encounters with the murdering cattle rustler, Trampas.
	Glendon Swarthout. The Shootist John Bernard Brooks,a legendary gunfighter afflicted with a terminal illness, seeks medical attention and solitudein Carson City. However, he finds himself embroiled in one last battle.
	Willa Cather. Death Comes for the Archbishop Death Comes for the Archbishop is Willa Cather's best-known novel, a narrative whose spare beauty achieves epic--and even mythic--qualities as it recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.
	Zane Grey. Riders of the Purple Sage The novel that set the pattern for the modern Western, Riders of the Purple Sage was first published in 1912, immediately selling over a million copies. In the remote border country of southern Utah, a man is about to be whipped by the Mormons in order to pressure Jane Withersteen into marrying against her will. The punishment is halted by the arrival of the hero, Lassiter, a gunman in black leather, who routs the persecutors and then gradually recounts his own history of an endless search for a woman abducted long ago by the Mormons. Secrecy, seduction, captivity, and escape: out of these elements Zane Grey fashioned his magnificent classic of the American West.
	Jack Schaefer. Monte Walsh Monte Walsh has never met a horse he couldn't ride, and Chet Rollins has never met one he couldn't rope. For a decade they are unbeatable and inseparable, working as trail hands throughout the West until finally settling with Cal Brennan's Slash Y. Their rough cowboy ethics see them through every imaginable challenge: blizzards, rustlers, outlaws, and card games gone wrong. Partial to pretty women, gambling, and practical jokes, Monte is often on the receiving end of trouble, while Chet is always there to break him out of jail or serve as a decoy until Monte can get out of town in a hurry.
	Walter Clark. Ox-Bow Incident Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community, justice and human nature.
	Louis L'Amour. Hondo A pioneer woman, a gunman, and an Apache warrior are caught in a drama of love, war, and honor.
	Cormac McCarthy. All the Pretty Horses Tells the story of John Grady Cole who, at 16, finds himself at the dying end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself.
	James Michener. Centennial A stunning panorama of the West, CENTENNIAL is an enthralling celebration of our country, brimming with the glory and the greatness of the American past that only bestselling author James Michener could bring to stunning life. From the Native Americans, the migrating white men and women, the cowboys, and the foreigners, it is a story of trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters--all caught up in the dramatic events and violent conflicts that shaped the destiny of our legendary West.
	Conrad Richter. The Sea of Grass "Presenting in epic scope the conflicts in the settling of the American Southwest. Set in New Mexico in the late 19th century, the novel concerns the often violent clashes between the pioneering ranchers, whose cattle range freely through the vast sea of grass, and the farmers, or "nesters," who build fences and turn the sod." - Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
	Norma Zollinger. Riders to Cibola Searching for a link to his past, orphan Ignacio Ortiz struggles for survival during both world wars and the beginning of the modern West while fighting his personal feelings about the MacAndrews family that employs him.
	Glendon Swarthout. The Homesman After venturing west of the Missouri to stake claims in uncharted territory, a number of settlers find the earth fallow and the desolate, lonely winters unbearable. When four of the wives go mad, the local minister entrusts a prim, strong-willed young schoolmarm, Mary Bee Cuddy, to transport them back to Iowa by covered wagon. With her, virtually against his will, is Briggs, a dishonest, foul-mouthed land-grabber (he steals other peoples' claims) whom Mary Bee saved from a lynching in exchange for his help.
	Portis. True Grit Portis is one of America's foremost comic writers. "True Grit" is his most famous novel and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne. It tells the story of Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl from Arkansas, who sets out in the winter of 1870-something to avenge the murder of her father.
	Alan LeMay. The Searchers To build a home on the Texas plains took years of work. To destroy it took one night.
	Max Evans. The Rounders Two cowboys named Dusty Jones and Wrangler Lewis set out to break a wild roan named Old Fooler; if he doesn't break them first.
	Elmer Kelton. The Day the Cowboys Quit Hugh Hitchcock reluctantly gets involved in the cowboy strike of 1883--and the open range won't ever be the same.
	Jack London. The Call Of The Wild The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, that is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.