Born Pearl Zane Gray on January 31, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio--a town founded by his mother's family--famed western novelist Zane Grey was an athlete and outdoorsman from an early age, with his main interests being fishing and baseball. He attended the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, graduating with a degree in dentistry in 1896. He played minor-league baseball for a short period for a team in West Virginia. He started a dentistry practice in New York city, where he met the woman who would become his wife, Lina Roth, who got him to focus more on his writing. He would, however, periodically take fishing trips to the upper Delaware River in Lackawaxen in Pike County, Pennsylvania. In 1902 he became a published author by selling a story about fishing. Three years later he and Lisa married and moved to a farm in Lackawaxen Grey began to take an interest in the West after accompanying a friend to Arizona on a trapping expedition to capture mountain lions. He published his first western novel, "Spirit of the Border", in 1906, and it quickly became a best-seller. In 1912 he published what is probably his best-known western novel, "Riders of the Purple Sage", which was also a big seller. Aiming to get his books made into films, he formed his own motion-picture production company, which he later sold to Paramount Pictures executive 'Jesse Lasky' . Paramount would produce a large number of westerns based on Grey's novels. Unlike many successful authors, Grey didn't content himself with simply churning out more novels. He traveled all over the world and involved himself in a variety of endeavors, from working a mining claim on Oregon's Rogue River to fishing for sharks in New Zealand, and writing books--both fiction and non-fiction--about his adventures. He had a special affinity for New Zealand and wrote many best-selling books about his fishing experiences there, which helped to make the country a mecca for deep-sea sport fishermen. Grey himself held many world records for catching big-game fish. He died in 1939 and is buried at the Union Cemetery in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. The city is also the location of the Zane Grey Museum, which is administered by the National Park Service.
Inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1977.
Prolific American writer and pioneer of Western as a new literary genre. His most famous book is "Riders of the Purple Sage" (1912).
His house in Arizona had a swimming pool. His neighbors came from miles around to use it, which he happily allowed.
Once owned a house on Catalina Island, where he was an avid fisherman.
Father of Romer Grey.
Formed Zane Grey Pictures Inc., a film production company, in 1920.
According to the 1974 book "Holly-Would!" all of Greys novels were filmed at least once.
I need this wild life, this freedom.
Instantly a thick blackness seemed to enfold her and silence as of a dead world settled down upon her. Drowsy as she was she could not close her eyes nor refrain from listening. Darkness and silence were tangible things. She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still the tumult of her, to sooth and rest, to create thought she had never thought before. Rest was more than selfish indulgence. Loneliness was necessary to gain conciseness of the soul.
The narrator finds that as a maturing character grows in stature before her friends that she sees less stature while evaluating herself.
Pride would never be her ally.
What is writing but an expression of my own life?,Jealousy is an unjust and stifling thing.
I arise full of eagerness and energy, knowing well what achievement lies ahead of me.
Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply. .
