Zane Grey (1872-1939) was a prolific American author whose idealization of the American frontier gave rise to a new literary genre: the western. In 1912 he published his best-selling book, Riders of the Purple Sage, which many claim to be both the most popular western novel of all time and the story responsible for singularly shaping the genre's formula. Set in the canyon country of southern Utah, 1871 - whose landscape is rendered with such vividness it becomes a character in its own right - the story tells of Venters, a gentile fed up with Mormon pretense; Lassiter, a renowned, roving gunslinger on a mission; and Jane Withersteen, a Mormon woman torn between religious duty, familial legacy, and the yearnings of her heart, who strives to maintain peace within the local Mormon community, led by the oppressive Bishop Dyer, after she refuses to marry the rapacious Elder Tull.