Riders of the Purple Sage is a Western novel by Zane Grey, first published by Harper & Brothers in 1912. Considered by scholars[1] to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre, the novel has been called "the most popular western novel of all time".[2]
Plot
Riders of the Purple Sage is a story about three main characters, Bern Venters, Jane Withersteen, and Jim Lassiter, who in various ways struggle with persecution from the local Mormon community led by Bishop Dyer and Elder Tull in the fictional town of Cottonwoods, Utah, around 1870-71.
Jane Withersteen, a born-and-raised Mormon, provokes Elder Tull because she is attractive, wealthy (and single), and befriends "Gentiles" (non-Mormons), namely, a little girl named Fay Larkin, a man she has hired named Bern Venters, and another hired man named Jim Lassiter. Elder Tull, a polygamist[3] with two wives already, wishes to have Jane for a third wife, along with her estate.
The story involves cattle-rustling, horse-theft, kidnapping and gunfights.
The setting is Southern Utah canyon country, 1871. The influx of Mormon settlers from 1847 to 1857 serves as a backdrop for the plot. The Mormons had been living in Kirtland, Ohio, in the 1830s, but ventured west to escape local religious persecution.
Point of view
The story is told by an omniscient narrator reporting the characters' actions and thoughts, for example: "On this night the same old loneliness beset Venters..."[4]
Characters
Jane Withersteen
Wealthy owner and operator of the sizable Withersteen ranch founded by her father. She is single, having resisted the efforts of others to push her into a plural marriage. Miss Withersteen sympathizes with both Mormons (her own people) and Gentiles, which gets her into trouble with the local bishop and elder.
Bern Venters
Venters is a non-Mormon employed by Miss Withersteen. As the story opens he is in a very poor state, being persecuted by the local Mormons. He is very able with firearms and horses, and is determined to survive and prosper.
Jim Lassiter
Lassiter is a gunfighter on a mysterious mission which brings him to Cottonwoods and Miss Withersteen. He is a non-Mormon and has no creed except his own pride.
Bess/Elizabeth Erne
Bess, known as the Masked Rider, has been raised by the outlaw Oldring and his band of rustlers; she has very little memory of her mother.
Elder Tull
Tull practices "plural marriage" and desires to marry Jane Withersteen. He also tries to drive Bern Venters and Lassiter out of town and out of the region.
Sequel
The Rainbow Trail, a sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage that reveals the fate of Jane and Lassiter and their adopted daughter, was published in 1915. Both novels are notable for their protagonists' strong opposition to Mormon polygamy, but in Rainbow Trail this theme is treated more explicitly. Both plots revolve around the victimization of women in the Mormon culture: Riders of the Purple Sage centers on the struggle of a Mormon woman who sacrifices her wealth and social status to avoid becoming a junior wife of the head of the local church, while Rainbow Trail contrasts the fanatical older Mormons with the rising generation of Mormon women who will not tolerate polygamy and Mormon men who do not seek it.
Adaptations
Films
Riders of the Purple Sage has been adapted to film five times.[5]
In 1952, Dell released a comic book version of the novel (Dell # 372).[7]
Riders of the Purple Sage was adapted into an opera by composer Craig Bohmler and librettist Steven Mark Kohn. It had its world premiere in February and March 2017 by the Arizona Opera in Tucson and Phoenix.[8] The opera was broadcast nationwide on November 25, 2017, on the WFMT Radio Network's American Opera Series,[9][10][11][12] and broadcast internationally in 2018 via distribution to the European Broadcasting Union.[13][14][15]
In popular culture
Riders of the Purple Sage has inspired a number of homages, including:
Bobbi Anderson, a novelist who is the main protagonist of Stephen King's 1987 novel The Tommyknockers, mentions Riders of the Purple Sage as one of her favorite novels, indicating that her copy of it had been read "nearly to tatters".
During the 1960s, the novel enjoyed great popularity among teenagers in SFR Yugoslavia, and Yugoslav rock band Parni Valjak paid homage to the novel on their 1976 debut album Dođite na show! (trans. Come to the Show!). The record is a concept album telling the story of the rise and decline of the fictional band called Ludi Šeširdžija i Jahači Rumene Kadulje (Mad Hatter and the Riders of the Purple Sage).[16]
A two part scenario for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game titled "Tortles of the Purple Sage" appeared in Dungeon Adventures #6 and #7 (1987).
References
Citations
^Handley, William R. Introduction. Zane Grey. Riders of the Purple Sage. New York: Modern Library, 2002; p. xi. ISBN978-08129-66121.
