Grey, Zane, 1872–1939, American writer of Western stories, b. Zanesville, Ohio, as Pearl Zane Gray, grad. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1896. His melodramatic tales of the West and Southwest are vivid in topographical detail but improbable in character and situation. During his lifetime over 13 million copies of his books were sold, and his works did much to romanticize the popular image of the American West. Grey was best known for Riders of the Purple Sage (1912).

Bibliography

See biographies by F. Gruber (1970) and T. H. Pauly (2005); study by C. Jackson (1973, rev. ed. 1989).

Grey, Zane

orig. Pearl Grey

Zane Grey, 1938

(credit: Courtesy of Zane Grey Inc.)

(born Jan. 31, 1872, Zanesville, Ohio, U.S.—died Oct. 23, 1939, Altadena, Calif.) U.S. novelist. He began his career as a dentist. He first visited the American West in 1906, setting his first novel, The Heritage of the Desert (1910), there. His second novel, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), was also set in the West and became the most popular of all his books; it helped launch a new literary genre, the western. Grey subsequently wrote more than 80 westerns, including Code of the West (1934). He remains one of the best-selling authors of all time.

Grey, (Pearl) Zane (1872–1939) writer; born in Zanesville, Ohio. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he practiced dentistry in New York City from 1898 to 1904, when he married and left his practice to concentrate on his writing. In 1907 he made his first trip to the West and this inspired him to start writing the "dime novels" that would make him one of America's all-time most popular authors. His Westerns, such as Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), featuring stereotypical characters in adventure-laden plots, helped establish the conventions of the genre; over 100 movies have been based on his writings. He lived in California and was an avid hunter and fisherman; his nearly 80 books included several on fishing.