Zane Grey - (1872-1939)
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San Pedro High School, San Pedro, California
Read another essay on Zane Grey written by Wyoming student Marc Eyre.
I. Biography
It was on December 31, 1872, that the inventor of the "West" was born. Named after his father in a town named after his grandfather, Zanesville, Ohio, Pearl Zane
Grey was born to be a great man. He would grow to be an athletic young man that served as an apprentice to his father, while showing incomparable talent in baseball, which gained
him a scholarship to college. He would later focus all of his energy on writing, a life long passion. At this he would excel and gain world-renowned status in all media. Along with
writing about the Wild West, he fished for the wild fish of the world, from inner America to beyond the outer reaches of civilization. He would die an accomplished man of the pen,
and of the fishing rod, holding titles from top seller to heaviest tuna. Zanesville, Ohio, named his grandfather, was the birthplace of Pearl Zane Gray. It was on
the 31st of December 1872, that the "inventor" of the "Wild West" was born to Lewis Gray, a dentist, a farmer, and a preacher as well. Born the second boy of five children, Pearl
would change his name in the 1890's by dropping Pearl and changing the spelling of his last name from "Gray" to "Grey." This young, athletic, spirit would grow up in Ohio with
the wilderness at his back porch. It was in the Muskingum River that the six-year-old Gray would first see a live fish. The sight captured the mind of the young child, and, for the rest
of his life, would intrigue him, and draw him to the outer limits of civilization, and beyond. It was not long before the young Grey wrote his first story, inspired by countless fishing
and hunting articles and short stories that came in the magazines of his neighbors, which he greedily read, but kindly returned. Unfortunately, having a writer for a son did not sit
well with his father, who tore his first story, which he found in a cave, beat his son, and swore he would never have a writer for a son, but, he was dearly wrong. This painful event,
which was not uncommon at that time, was not discouraging enough to deter the desire to write what was engulfing the mind and soul of this author-to-be. However, he became an
apprentice to his father in his dentistry office, and followed that career for all of his early life. Zanesville, Ohio provided Grey with the bases for his three greatest desires in life: writing,
fishing, and baseball. From the first story that was burned by his father, to his 85th book, Zane Grey was destined to be an author. Fishing was another love of Grey that stayed with
him until his final days. His first experience with fish was on a trip to one of his aunt's house with his mother. Here, he first caught a glimpse of the mystical silver motion of a live
fish in water, and that sight forever enchanted him. Baseball was not one of Grey's lifelong passions, but it was very important in his early life. His talent allowed him to get a
scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied dentistry, as he was expected to. After graduating from Pennsylvania's Dental Department in 1898, Zane Grey moved to New York, where he set up his own practice.
The city was not a natural home for Grey, and he felt the common need to "get away from it all." With this drive, he found Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. It was there that he could hunt,
fish, and relax, just as he had done as a child, while enjoying the wonders of nature. On one of these relaxing trips, he, a 28 year old, found Lina Elise Roth, a beautiful 17 year
old, canoeing on the Delaware River. This encounter may have been the most fortunate in Zane Grey's entire career. This is because of the encouragement that "Dolly," as he called
her, provided him with in regards to his writing, along with a sizable inheritance that allowed him to continue writing after early failures. With the positive influence Dolly
provided, Grey decided that she was perfect for him, and they married in 1905. It was with Dolly's belief in his writing that Grey left dentistry to become an author. They stayed
together in New York for several more years. There, they had three children, Romer, Betty, and Loren. By 1918, Grey had written fifteen books, including his most noted work, Riders of the Purple Sage.
The move of the Grey family to California took place in 1918, to a huge house in Altadena, where he would consider himself home. He, however, also owned "cottages" on Catalina
Island, as well as homes in Arizona and Washington State. Grey did not limit himself, or his family, to the boundaries of the United States; utilizing his two yachts, Grey traveled with
his family on fishing expeditions to Tahiti, Australia, as well as many other exotic islands and fishing spots, often in the middle of "Nowhere."
And so Grey lived his life: living to write, writing to live, and fishing in between. That is truly an enjoyable life. II. Professional Life
Grey, like most authors, suffered from a poor start at his writings. His first work, Jim of the Cave, a story about a group of his friends who spent time in a small cave near his house,
was torn-up and burned by his father, who later whipped him as well. This took place early in Grey's life, and left a strong enough impact on his mind that he didn't produce any other
works until 1902 when he was encouraged to write a fishing article. The article was titled "A Day on the Delaware," and was published in Recreation magazine.
Much of Grey's time was devoted to reading. He read books such as Robinson Crusoe, Last of the Mohicans, and Our Western Border, and he was also very fond of dime
novels, which were passed along by friends until everyone had read each of the novels. It was not until later that his wife introduced Grey to some of the more notable authors such
as Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe, Kipling, and Charles Darwin. Dolly also taught Grey many of the basics of grammar, which he later used to provide dramatic descriptions of beautiful scenes of exotic islands and beaches.
With his newfound knowledge of writing provided by his wife and some motivation that was provided by having one of his articles published, Grey decided to write a novel. His
first true book was based on an actual event (just as most of his works were) in which his grandmother saved a fort by risking her life to deliver gunpowder to those in the fort. Titled Betty Zane
, Grey had to pay to have this book published, but, in 1906, he found a publisher willing to pay royalties for his next book, and another willing to do so as well with his third. At this point, Grey's career began to take off.
In 1910, Grey's intricate details and beautiful mental images allowed Riders of the Purple Sage to become a huge success. Even now, 80 years later, copies are still being sold and
the count is over 1.5 million copies sold. Even though so many copies of this book were sold, it did not make it to the best-sellers list. Grey would achieve that status in 1915, with his book The Lone Star Ranger
. Three years later, with The U.P. Trail, Grey made it to the #1 spot on the best-sellers list. In an astounding run, Grey was on the best-sellers list for 10 years, missing only 1916. The U.P. Trail
also provided Grey with a more definite direction in his writings—Westerns. With the huge success of this novel, Grey did not have a hard decision as to what he should focus on. From then on, Grey concentrated on
his writings of Western novels. Sixty of his 85 novels ended up being Westerns, but he did not neglect his writings of articles, reviews, and manuscripts about hunting, fishing, and yachting.
During Grey's high point in his career, he would spend several months at a time at sea on his yachts, the Fisherman or the Fisherman II, or on exotic islands, where he would take
"safaris." Once he returned to his writing desk at home in Altadena, he would write about his adventures and experiences. This pattern was both effective for him, but very likely fun as well.
Grey provided the world with hundreds of works which are known the world over. The writings of this one man span from his first published book, to the present, to the future,
where he will influence and inspire people of all ages, even after his death, in October of 1939, of a heart attack. III. Regional Influences
Nature, no matter where Grey was, was the major influence, and support, in his work. Almost all of Zane Grey's works have similar characteristic—exquisite descriptions of the
setting. Grey grew up by the Delaware River and, for the most part, in nature. In one of his more famous quotes, he stated how he had learned to appreciate, "Nature in her wild
moods," in her, "beauty and color and mystery of great spaces"(1918). The spaces, which he described, were those of the West, as he first saw with Colonel "Buffalo Jones" in an
expedition to the western America. Here, Grey first witnessed the immense scale of Nature in open plains of the West, along with the colors of the sky and the ground itself, which he
walked on. This contradiction to his former life in New York led him to move his family to Altadena, California. Grey also saw the beauty in nature on Catalina Island, off of the coast
of southern California, as well as on exotic islands in the Pacific, where he caught some of the largest fish in the world. Grey never forgot the beauty of the fish he saw in a stream when he was a child. The fish
forever enchanted his mind, and he would, at one time or another, hold all of the deep-sea fishing records, including the heaviest tuna, 758 lbs., largest Tiger Shark, 1,036 lbs., and the largest Tahitian Striped Marlin, 1,040 lbs.
Grey was not able to accurately describe the nature and essence of the West as he wished from his home in Delaware. Throughout his writing career, Grey depicted his stories most
vividly when he was at the site that he was writing about. For this reason, he moved to California—to get "in touch" with the way of the West. Upon arriving in Altadena, Grey
took a side room in his home and began to write. It is from this room that Grey wrote many of the stories that would eventually earn him the name of the most prolific writer of the modern Western.
IV. Literary Works This is just a short list of his over 100 works. Betty Zane (1903; Ohio River Trilogy) * Not all of Grey's works were published during his life, many were released after his death for publication.
VI. Grey on the Web The Zane Grey Western Society:
Jim of the Cave Late (1890's)
Riders of the Purple Sage (1912)
Desert Gold (1913)
The Lone Star Ranger (1915)
The U.P. Trail (1918)
The Man of the Forest (1920)
To the Last Man (1922)
Nevada (1928)
Sunset Pass (1931)
The Code of the West (1934)
The Lost Wagon Train (1936)
Western Union (1939)
Stairs of the Sand (1943)
Wyoming (1953)
Horse Heaven Hill (1959)
Boulder Dam (1963)
The Zane Grey Museum:
http://www.nps.gov/upde/zgmuseum.htm
A recently restored cottage in Arizona is also now open to the public VII. Sources
Gruber, Frank. Zane Grey. New York and Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1970. Zane Grey Museum:
This essay was submitted by a student of Kathy Honda Stein, a teacher at San Pedro High School in San Pedro, California.