THE BEST OF ZANE GREY: RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE; THE TRAIL DRIVER; RANGERS OF THE LONE STAR

Without a doubt Riders of the Purple Sage is the best western ever written. And Zane Grey is the best author to have ever penned the story of the American West. Along with Heritage of the Desert these two rank one and two. Some would say Zane Grey is old fashioned and out of date, but this is not true, if one wants to read good romance, good action, good social inter action and psychological stories, with excellent and brilliant descriptive backgrounds as to the time and the place and the area where these stories take place. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially to the women out there, as ZG writes a lot of this story from a woman' perspective. The Trail Driver is the story of the cattle drive. From Texas they came, where cattle had little value except for their hides, to Kansas and the railroad where each head was worth about twenty dollars. So a herd of 3000 was worth upwards of sixty thousand dollars--quite a sum back then, and even yet today. In this novel Zane Grey relates to the reader just what it was like for a group of cow punchers to drive a herd up the Chisolm Trail--the dangers, the rivers, the storms, the stampedes, the Indians. Yet, this is also the personal story of love, commitment, honesty, fortitude, and how each of us must face up to these obstacles. The character, Pan Handle Smith, shows up in this one--one of Zane Grey's great heros--to help deliver the cattle and use his guns. If you have ever seen the old TV show, Rawhide, this novels tells it like it really was. Of course, there is the romantic element, without which it would not be Zane Grey. A solid novel, well worth reading more than once. Rangers of the Lone Star, parts of which were published in the 1970's as The Rustlers of Pecos County using different character and place names, is an okay book. It is one of only a handful of Zane Grey "fiction" books written in first person, and my opinion is, Zane Grey didn't handle first person prose very well when writing fiction. But aside from that this is a basic shoot-em up written early in his career, rejected by Harpers editors, and eventually combined with another book, Last of the Duanes, to form what many consider one of Zane Grey's best, The Lone Star Ranger. To fashion and custom of the times, this book is historically accurate and well crafted, but it just lacks the one element to make it great which I have yet to put my finger on. But it's Zane Grey, so how bad can it be? It's not bad, there are others just better. So, I say, buy it and read it for yourself and give it your rating.