Best Western Novels

I'm putting together a reading list of the ten to twenty best Western novels ever written. What titles/authors would you suggest?

I sure like Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry and Conagher by Louis L'Amour. I'm not sure they're in the best list, but they're two of my favorites. Louis L'Amour is my favorite Western storyteller.

Okay, the list so far...

The Ox-bow Incident - Walter Van Tilburg Clark
True Grit - Charles Portis
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
Conagher - Louis L'Amour

Anyone else have a favorite Western to add?

I'll second Lonesome Dove and Conagher, but will add The Virginian to your list.

Don't forget there are a ton of short stories of the "Western" genre, and worthy of mention. "The Gift of Cochise" (from War Party) is one of the best, imo.

Here is a link to "The Gift of Cochise": https://sites.google.com/a/mitty.com/amlit/short-stores/teh-gift-of-cochise

Louis L'Amour is also my favorite Western 'storyteller'...and he is just that, a teller of stories. Most of what he wrote is good to very good, and a few I'd classify as excellent.

I think this was done on another thread.

The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr.
Death Comes For The Archbishop by Willa Cather
My Antonia by Willa Cather
All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Shane by Jack Schaefer

Okay then...

All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
The Big Sky - A. B. Guthrie Jr.
Conagher - Louis L'Amour
Death Comes For The Archbishop - Willa Cather
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
My Antonia - Willa Cather
The Ox-bow Incident - Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Shane - Jack Schaefer
True Grit - Charles Portis
The Virginian - Owen Wister

4> Which few of Louis L'Amour's books do you consider excellent, fuzzi?

>5 barney67: Is Willa Cather's Death Comes To The Archbishop a western?

(7)juju, based upon those books that I would keep if I had to cull most of my L'Amours...the following are in my 'excellent' pile:

Conagher
Bowdrie
Man Called Noon
Jubal Sackett
The Sackett Brand
Borden Chantry
Utah Blaine

Just to name a few...

Thanks, fuzzi! I'll start there.

Good lists above. As to L'Amour, I'm partial to his Kilkenny trilogy: Kilkenny, The Rider of Lost Creek, and The Mountain Valley War, as well as the later Sackett novels. Down the Long Hills won the Golden Spur Award in 1968, and Bendigo Shafter won the U.S. National Book Award in 1979.

(11)All good, too, but with 100ish L'Amours to choose from...

Down the Long Hills is excellent as well.

I would add Warlock by Oakley Hall to your list.

Does anyone remember the name of the L'Amour book of a woman who is a station master and then a mysterious stranger comes and they fight outlaws who want to rob the stage? I can't remember the name of it and need to get a copy for a particular reason. Thanks for the help.

Cherokee Trail?

Cherokee Trail is correct. Mary Breydon is the station master and Temple Boone the mysterious stranger.

That's it! Thanks! I remember their names now.

New here. Pocket bio: Retired humanities teacher, residing in Tlaxcala, Mexico, with two dogs and six indoor cats. Passionate about literature, history, philosophy, classical music and opera, jazz, cinema, and similar subjects. Nostalgic guy. Politically centrist. BA in American Studies from Yale; MAs in English and Education from Boston University. Born in northern New Jersey. Have lived and worked in San Francisco, Chicago, northern Nevada, northeast Wisconsin, South Korea.

Recently read and greatly enjoyed the ur-Western, Owen Wister’s The Virginian. It stands in an interesting position at the head of both the literary fiction of the West AND the genre Western. I find it a completely satisfying novel that establishes the template for “the Western”, including, very significantly, its essentially nostalgic nature. For even in 1902, when Wister published this, he wrote in the preface of how the Wyoming of 1874-1890 was gone forever. The Virginian “will never come again. He rides in his historic yesterday.” And that has remained true; virtually all Westerns continue to be set in that period, sometimes stretching back as far as the end of the Civil War in 1865, sometimes forward to 1900 but not much beyond. Among other factors that doomed the “Old West” was barbed wire; fencing destroys the freedom of movement of both cowboys and their cattle. In the novel, the Virginian is already preparing for a future that could not generate his like again.

When is a Western not a Western? When it’s a Northern!

The Wikipedia article on this subject is quite good:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_(genre)

“The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, settlers, and townsfolk.”

Some authors that are associated with this genre are Jack London, Rex Beach, Robert Service, Ralph Connor, and James Oliver Curwood. I am reading Beach’s The Spoilers at the moment, famously filmed five times (1914, 1923, 1930, 1942, 1955), the highlight always being an epic fist-fight towards the climax. The novel is rousing good fun, based on an actual incident of corruption during the Yukon Gold Rush * , which Beach had witnessed first-hand.

* The key malfeasor was Alexander McKenzie (1851-1922), whom I encountered in my recent reading in North Dakota history. A very nasty guy and machine politician who served prison time for corruption. He conspired, in collaboration with officials he helped place in office, to cheat Alaska gold miners of their winnings by fraudulently claiming title to their mines.