The Virginian (1902) is Owen Wister's classic popular romance, and a significant shaping influence on cowboy fiction. Its narrator, fresh from the East, encounters in Wyoming cattle country a beautiful, baffling, and sometimes violent land where the handsome figure of the Virginian battles Trampas for supremacy and demonstrates that the "customs of the country" must eventually prevail. In his courtship of the Vermont schoolteacher, Molly Wood, the Virginian encounters a battle of a different kind. Rich in vernacular wit and portraying a romanticized escape from the decorum of the patrician East, The Virginian conveys a sense of redemptive possibility drawing on Wister's ranching, hunting, and fishing trips in Wyoming and Montana between 1885 and 1900.
Adaptations (6)
The Virginian has been adapted 6 times, across film and television series, from 1914 to 2000.
The Virginian1914 · film · 55 min · dir. Cecil B. DeMille · IMDb ↗IMDb5.6A good-natured but chivalrous cowboy romances the local schoolmarm and leads the posse that brings a gang of rustlers, which includes his best friend, to justice.
The Virginian1923 · film · 80 min · dir. Tom Forman · IMDb ↗IMDb6.2Molly Wood arrives in a small western town to be the new schoolmarm. The Virginian, foreman on a local ranch, takes a shine to her, and vows that he will make her love him. The Virginian's best friend, Steve, falls in with bad guys led by Trampas. The Virginian catches them cattle rustling. As foreman, he must give the order to hang his friend. Trampas gets away and shoots the Virginian in the back. Molly nurses him to health, and falls in love with him. They plan to marry, but on their wedding day Trampas returns, looking for trouble.
The Virginian1946 · film · 87 min · dir. Stuart Gilmore · IMDb ↗IMDb6.4Arriving at Medicine Bow, eastern schoolteacher Molly Woods meets two cowboys, irresponsible Steve and the "Virginian," who gets off on the wrong foot with her. To add to his troubles, the Virginian finds that his old pal Steve is mixed up with black-hatted Trampas and his rustlers...then finds himself at the head of a posse after said rustlers; and Molly hates the violent side of frontier life.
The Virginian1962 · television series · 1 min · IMDb ↗IMDb7.6The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western.
The Virginian2000 · film · 95 min · dir. Bill Pullman · IMDb ↗IMDb5.9A cowboy finds himself betrayed by his best friend and must choose between bringing him to justice and alienating the pretty schoolteacher he is in love with.
