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The Virginian
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The Virginian

novel by Wister
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Also known as: “The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains”
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The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
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The Virginian, Western novel by Owen Wister, published in 1902. Its great popularity contributed to the enshrinement of the American cowboy as an icon of American popular culture and a folk ideal.

A chivalrous and courageous but mysterious cowboy known only as “the Virginian” works as foreman of a cattle ranch in the Wyoming territory during the late 1870s and ’80s. The gunplay and violence that are inherent in his frontier code of behaviour threaten the Virginian’s relationship with a pretty schoolteacher from the East. The novel’s climactic gun duel is the first “showdown” in fiction. It also introduced the now-classic phrase that the Virginian utters when pushed to the limit by an adversary: “When you call me that, smile!”

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.