Classic Western Novels

The Pulitzer Prize­–winning American classic of the American West that follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. An epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.
Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic,...

Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community,...

This unforgettable story of the friendship between a farm boy and a gunman struggling to escape his dark past was made into a critically acclaimed movie in 1953 that became a classic standard for Westerns. Shane, a mysterious traveller and ex-gunfighter, enters into the life of Joe Starrett and his family and carves a place for himself in their hearts. Although he tries to leave his gunslinging past behind, revealing little about himself and

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Now a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Gabe Polsky.
In his National Book Award–winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to...

After inheriting a southern Utah estate from her Mormon father, Jane Withersteen becomes the victim of a cruel frontier law.

"The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a gunfighter at the turn of the twentieth century who must confront the greatest Shootist of all: Death. Most men would end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a gunfighter has a third option, one that Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner. As word spreads that the famous assassin has incurable cancer, an assortment of human vultures gathers to feast on the corpse--among them a...

""The truth is always made up of little particulars which sound ridiculous when repeated." So says Jack Crabb, the 111-year-old narrator of Thomas Berger's 1964 masterpiece of American fiction, Little Big Man. Berger claimed the Western as serious literature with this savage and epic account of one man's extraordinary double life. After surviving the massacre of his pioneer family, ten-year-old Jack is adopted by an Indian chief who nicknames him...

"Although known for his mysteries, Elmore Leonard has penned some of the best western fiction ever."
—USA Today

Grand Master Elmore Leonard is justifiably acknowledged as one of the very best crime fiction writers ever, alongside other all-time greats like John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Robert Parker. But he has also many acclaimed masterworks of American western fiction to his credit—including

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