| Researcher | Author: Title | |
| Nikole Krause | Grey, Zane: The Man of the Forest | |
| Assignment 1: Bibliographic Description | ||
| 1. First Edition Publication Information | Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, London, 1920. | |
| 2. First Edition in Cloth, Paper, or Both? | Cloth | |
| 3. Image of Cover Art | A1319980204111812.jpg | |
| 4. Pagination | 383 pages | |
| 5. Edited and/or Introduced? | No | |
| 6. Illustrated? | Yes, by Frank Tenney Johnson. | |
| 7. Sample Illustration | A1719980204111812.jpg | |
| 8. General Appearance | The general appearance of the book is fairly
attractive. The cover is dark green with black and lighter green used for the cover art and text. There are several glossy black and white illustrations and the text is very clear. | |
| 9. Image of Sample Chapter Page | A1919980204111812.jpg | |
| 10. Description of Paper | The paper is holding up exceptionally
well after several decades in a public library. There is almost no yellowing and the pages are very clean with little sign of wear. | |
| 11. Description of Binding | The binding hasn't held up quite as
well as the paper. The spine was both sewn and glued together. Though the glue is now mostly gone, the spine is still mostly attached. The problem is in the hinges, which are really loose and the webbing shows through in spots. | |
| 12. Title Page Transcription |
| |
| 13. Image of Title Page | A11319980204111812.jpg | |
| 14. Manuscript Holdings | Zane Grey Inc.
Los Angeles, CA. | |
| Assignment 2: Publication History | ||
| 1. Other Editions: | N/A | |
| 4. First Edition printings or impressions? | Pending | |
| 5. Editions from other publishers? | In alphabetical order: Amereon Limited-1976, Chivers North America-1999, Corgi-1968, Grosset & Dunlap-1920 & '48, J. Curley & Assoc.-1986 (large print), Pocket Books-1947, '82 & '77, Simon & Schuster-1985, U. of Nebraska-1996, Walter J. Black Co.-1920, '48, & '61. | |
| 6. Last date in print? | Pendin g | |
| 7. Total copies sold? | Pending (HarperCollins) | |
| 8. Sales by year? | 774,500 by 1965 (70 Years of Bestsellers by Alice Payne Hackett) Pending (HarperCollins) | |
| 9. Advertising copy: | N.Y. Times Book Review: February: 8th - p.77, 15th - p.98 *Review by Richard Le Gallienne on p.94* N.Y. Times Review of Books: February:22 - p.2 (quarter-page ad) March: 7 - p.3, 14 - p.2, 21 - p.2, 28 - p.4 April: 4 - p.3 N.Y. Times Book Review: April: 11 - p.165, 18 - p.194, 25 - p.204. May: 2 - p.285, 9 - p.247 [The Big Novel of 1920], 16 - p. 257, 23 - p.23, 30 - p.285. June: 6 - p.292, 13 - p.317 N.Y. Times Book Review & Magazine: July: 4 - p.15, 18 - p.17 August: 1 - p.17 [For Seven Months the Best Selling Book in the United States], 8 - p.23, 15 - p.21 | |
| 10. Image of sample advertisement | A21019980220120453.jpg | |
| 12. Performances in other media? | Film, 1921 Studio: Hodkinson Director: Benjamin B. Hampton Featured Players: Carl Gantvoort, Claire Adams, Robert McKim, Jean Hersholt Film, 1926 Studio: Paramount Director: John Waters Featured Players: Jack Holt, Georgia Hale, Tom Kennedy, El Brendel Film, 1933 & VHS, 1987 (b&w, 64 min.) Studio: Paramount Director: Henry Hathaway Featured Players: Randolph Scott, Verna Hillie, Harry Carey, Noah Beery, Sr. VHS, 1993 "Zane Grey, Classics of the Old West" (b&w, 399 min.) VHS, 1995 (b&w, 70min.) Studio: Bridgestone | |
| 13. Translations? | German: Der Mann Aus Dem Walde translated by Paul Baudisch with forward by Hans Heinz Ewers; Berlin, 1926, 424p. | |
| 14. Serialization? | N/A | |
| 15. Sequels or Prequels? | Country Gentleman Magazine Serial beginning October 20, 1917 | |
| Assignment 3: Brief Biography | ||
| Pearl Zane Gray (he later dropped his first name and legally changed the spelling of his last) was born to Josephine Zane and Robert Gray in Zanesville Ohio on January 31, 1872. His mother's family was originally of Danish descent but also boasted a proud part in the Revolutionary War. Zanesville was named after her great-grandfather. Grey's father was second-generation Irish. Zane Grey was the fourth of five children with two sisters and two brothers: Ella, Ida, Lewis Ellsworth and Romer Carl. Grey went to the University of Pennsylvania on baseball scholarship. His father was a dentist and he too studied dentistry (it's not certain whether he was forced to do so or because he was biding his time). After graduation he immediately began to establish a practice in New York City. In 1902, at age 31, he met Lina "Dolly" Roth, also the year he published his first article: "A Day in Delaware" in Recreation Magazine. The next year he published his first book, Betty Zane (based on the adventures of his great-grandmother who had carried gunpowder in her apron to the troops at Fort Henry). Harper & Brothers had rejected it, Dolly paid to have it published. He married her two years later and they moved to Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. They had three children, two boys and a girl: Romer in 1909, Elizabeth in 1912 and Loren in 1915. Zane Grey published eighty-nine books in his lifetime: 56 Westerns, 9 fishing novels (it was his favorite pastime), and 3 Ohio River stories as well as some juvenile fiction and baseball stories. The most famous and well read of these stories are The Lone Star Ranger and Riders of the Purple Sage. His main publisher was Harper & Brothers but Outing, Grosset & Dunlap, Whitman, Walter J. Black and Pocket Books also published his works. Grey had a heart attack in 1937 that he never fully recovered from and died of a second attack at his home in Altadena, CA, on October 23, 1939 at age 67. Most of his papers are kept by his son Loren who runs the Zane Grey West Society in Los Angeles. | ||
| Assignment 4 | ||
| Contemporary Reception: | ||
| Many modern critics of Zane Grey discuss the simplicity of Grey's writings and ask how they could have been so popular. Critics of the time, however, seem to fully aware of how simplistic Man of the Forest is and cite that, and its escapist possibilities, as the reason why it was so popular. As modern readers might seek their escapes in science fiction and virtual reality, readers of the 1920s were equally curious about the "wild west." Robert Le Galliene N. Y. Times Review of Books, February 8, 1920: "It is a favorite theory of certain critics and of writers whose books do not "sell" that "best sellers" can only be written by men who cannot write. Mr. Zane Grey has incurred the disgrace of popularity . . . can afford to smile at that theory and softly whisper, "sour grapes."" Rupert Hughes (quoted in advertisements): "Zane Grey has more of the epic spirit than any other living American. He gives the Homeric bigness, ruggedness, tremendousness to his people." N.Y. Times, April 18, '20: "A Western story conventional in plot and incident, but well written and with a certain nobility in its feelings for the freedom of the wide spaces." Booklist, 16:281 May '20: "A story full of the thrills and charms familiar to readers of Zane Grey." Springfield Republican March 14, '20: ""At times Mr. Grey gives play to his liking for descriptive paragraphs, which sometimes bulk too large. But theses are seldom formal. The book is among the author's best stories." The Times [London] Literary Supplement July 1, '20: "Few romances make better business out of the wilds of the West than Mr. Zane Grey: and he is well up to his mark in this stirring tale." | ||
| Subsequent Reception: | ||
| Most subsequent critics of Man of the Forest mention Darwinism and sometimes Capitalism as obvious themes in Grey's work. It is the proven (and the dead) writer's privilege to sit back and let people hypothesize about his or her deeper psychological leanings to their heart's content. Carlton Jackson, 1989 - "Man of the Forest shows more clearly than most of his books how mountainous settings inspired thoughts of evolution," "Grey unwittingly became an acceptable interpreter of Darwinism to a great mass of America's citizens" (p.42) Cynthia S. Hamilton 1987 - "Grey's heroines . . are civilisation's [sic] missionaries, pointing the way toward a more humane society which it is men's duty to fight to establish. Women provide the rationale for men's violence. . . Helen is revealed as a male-ego prop on a number of different levels" (p.23) Darwinism "Grey's heroes do not make the transition to capitalists"(emphasis mine, p.90), "he has no awareness of the levels of language; he seems unaware of the important differences between the colloquial style and a more literary approach. As a result, one finds him moving quickly from a stilted literary level to an awkward attempt at colloquial speech."(p. 91) Stephen May 1997 - "laden with Darwinian thinking," "a simple, even trivial, plot with influences from Grey's beloved Robinson Crusoe." (p.124) Ann Roland 1975 - "conservative . . . an openly pantheistic book whose sole purpose seems evangelistic." (p.37) | ||
| Assignment 5 | ||
| Electronic Edition: | Table of Contents | |
Bestsellers
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
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