Riders of the Purple Sage

1871 Utah. Jane Withersteen rules her ranch with an iron will and an open heart, but her independence has made her dangerous enemies among the Mormon hierarchy. When she refuses to marry a church elder and continues befriending Gentiles, she finds herself encircled by threats that grow more dire by the day. Then Lassiter rides in, a legendary gunslinger with a reputation that precedes him like desert wind, and a gentleness that no one expects. As Bern Venters, Jane's loyal rider, discovers dark secrets in the canyonlands, the two men converge around a woman who will not kneel. Zane Grey's 1912 masterpiece invented the visual and emotional grammar of the Western: the vast Utah landscape of red rock and purple sage, the lone hero on horseback, the clash between institutional power and individual freedom. It became the best-selling novel of the twentieth century, a thrilling romance wrapped in controversy, and the book that defined a genre.