The Mysterious Rider

The Mysterious Rider by Zane Grey - 1921. From the master of the western comes a novel full of romance and adventure. Rancher Bill Belllounds brought up Columbine as though she were his daughter. Out of affection for her foster father, Columbine agrees to marry his son Jack, who is a drunkard, gambler, coward, and thief. But she really loves the cowboy, Wilson Moore. Then, the Mysterious Rider appears at the Belllounds ranch, a man of middle age, gentle, kindly, but so formidable a gun fighter he has earned the nickname Hell Bent Wade. He will play a pivotal role in righting the wrongs in the story.

Zane Grey - (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author and dentist. He is known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, his books have second lives and continuing influence adapted for films and television. His novels and short stories were adapted into 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.

Pearl Zane Grey was born January 31, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio. His birth name may have originated from newspaper descriptions of Queen Victoria's mourning clothes as "pearl grey". He was the fourth of five children born to Alice "Allie" Josephine Zane, whose English Quaker immigrant ancestor Robert Zane came to the American colonies in 1673, and her husband, Lewis M. Gray, a dentist. His family changed the spelling of their last name to "Grey" after his birth. Grey later dropped "Pearl" and used "Zane" as his first name. Grey grew up in Zanesville, a city founded by his paternal grandfather Benjamin Zane's brother-in-law, John McIntire (husband of Sarah Zane), who had been given the land by Grey's maternal great-grandfather, Ebenezer Zane, an American Revolutionary War patriot.

Both Grey and his brother Romer were active and athletic boys who were enthusiastic baseball players and fishermen. From an early age, he was intrigued by history. Soon, he developed an interest in writing. His early interests contributed to his later writing success. For example, his knowledge of history informed his first three novels, which recounted the heroism of ancestors who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

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Release date

Ebook: 15 December 2023