Zane Grey, Born to the West: A Reference Guide by Kenneth W. Scott

Abstract

154 Western American Literature The Norris correspondence presents interesting aspects of the author. The reader, for example, sees a man who capitalizes on acquaintances and friends in order to further his career. One also sees Norris, the compliant employee at Doubleday Page who—because he understands the power of a publisher—abides by the decisions of his superiors although he disagrees with the publishing machinations surrounding Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. In evidence, too, are letters to Hamlin Garland, letters to editors of journals and to the young Isaac Marcosson and the established William Dean Howells, and letters displaying the affectionate family man. Of course, one finds Norris’ “famous” letter, a thank-you to Lewis Gates for his encouragement and criticisms of McTeague while Norris was enrolled in English 22. Crisler offers an interesting explanatory note to this letter: Norris’only “A” at Harvard was in this course. This edition offers an informed view of the author, and will likely generate even greater attention for Frank Norris. VIRGIL ALBERTINI Northwest Missouri State University Zane Grey, Born to the West: A Reference Guide. By Kenneth W. Scott. (Boston: G. K. Hall &Co., 1979 [Reprinted, 1987], 179 pages, no price listed.) Bibliographies may not be quite as ephemeral as yesterday’s proverbial newspaper, but their usefulness does diminish steadily as time passes and schol­ arship continues, and are thus in constant need of updating. When Kenneth W. Scott’s bibliography of Zane Grey first appeared in 1979, it was the indispensible point of departure for Grey studies, with its complete listing of Grey’s novels, films based on his stories, and most of the significant secondary litera­ ture from 1904 to 1977 arranged chronologically (the introduction does men­ tion one 1978 article). One wonders, though, what purpose Scott and G. K. Hall hope to serve by simply reprinting the 1979 edition with no attempt to correct its omissions nor with even the most perfunctory nod to the Zane Grey literature of the past decade. Recent Grey literature has been extraordinarily interesting, focusing as it has more on Grey’s personality and life as an outdoorsman than on his literary corpus. In such works as Loren Grey’s Zane Grey: A Photographic Odyssey, Ernest Schwiebert’s Death of a Riverkeeper, and George Reiger’s The Undis­ covered Zane Grey Fishing Stories, Grey emerges as a man with seemingly infinite wealth but also with an infinite ego and little taste and personal ethics. Candace Kant’s Zane Grey’s Arizona and Maggie Wilson’s August, 1984 Ari­ zona Highways article reveal extramarital liaisons. This newer trend shows a refreshing iconoclasm, and if Grey appears less admirable than in previous adoring biographies, he isalso more human. One cannot in good conscience review a Zane Grey bibliography without registering yet another protest against the Grey family’s irresponsible adminis­ Reviews 155 tration of their father’s papers, a circumstance that has so far deprived us of the exhaustive and objective biographical and literary studies we badly need. One hopes that by the time Scott gets around to bringing his bibliography up to date, this situation will have changed, the Grey papers will have found their way into some responsible archival facility where they can be properly cared for and freely opened to research, and that Grey will at last be on his way toward his proper place in literary history, whatever it may be. GARY TOPPING Utah State Historical Society Prairies Within. By Harold P. Simonson. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987. 112 pages, $15.00.) In 1970 in The Closed Frontier, Professor Simonson called for an exami­ nation of Ole Rolvaag’s frontier trilogy as a tragedy of “deracination, of cul­ tural uprootedness.” Prairies Within isthat long overdue analysis, in particular of the profound effect that Rolvaag’s religious faith had upon the Beret Holm trilogy: Giants in the Earth, Peder Victorious, and Their Fathers’ God. Following an examination of Rolvaag’s personality, in particular of his intense religious consciousness as it is reflected in Beret, Simonson offers four chapters on themes in the trilogy. Chapter two examines the condition of the Norwegian immigrants, who, like other groups, found themselves under con­ stant pressure “to make of...