Classic Western Literature

While portraying life in a new settlement on New York's Lake Otsego in the final years of the 18th century, Cooper deftly explores the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the American experience. He contrasts the natural codes of the hunter and woodsman, Natty Bumppo, and his Indian friend John Mokegan with the more rigid structure of law required by a more complex society.

Considered by André Gide to be one of the 10 greatest novels in the French language, Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty and wretchedness of a mining community in Northern France under the second empire. At the centre of the novel is Etienne Lantier, a handsome 21-year-old mechanic, intelligent but with little education and a dangerous predisposition to murderous, alcoholic rage.

This Raging Bull Publishing bundle contains four classic Western audiobooks by Zane Grey.

In 1829, Jacob and Martin left Kentucky to become Mountain Men, trappers of the Rocky Mountains. The rugged mountains that lay beyond America's frontier remained mostly unexplored. In those days, when beaver were plentiful and the buffalo roamed freely, the killing was good. The two young men would also find that life would be hardscrabble in the high frontier. They would face grizzly bears and hostile Indians. And they would risk horse wrecks and mountain storms to trade their furs each year at "rendezvous".

These four novels remain classics 100 years after they were published. They not only shaped the literature of the 20th century, but they altered our views of life and reality—and what can and cannot be written about. These novels—all written a century ago—remain gripping and unforgettable. These audio versions bring their powerful narratives vividly to life for the modern listener.

A brand-new Western adventure from the author of The Legend of Jake Jackson. This is a rip-roaring new adventure that puts a United States marshal directly on the trail of evil. Caleb Jacobs made a vow the day his family was unmercifully slaughtered by a cutthroat gang of outlaws. He dedicated his life to protecting those who could not protect themselves. Caleb swore that he would bring justice to the frontier by the gun or by the noose.

The Classic Sheriff Ben Stillman Series Begins...Playing poker, smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey - retirement was treacherous business for ex-lawman Ben Stillman. The best of life seemed to be past, but then the past came looking for him. The son of an old friend rides into Ben's life with a plea for justice and a mind for revenge. Up on the Hi-Line in Montana, a rich Englishman is rustling ranchers out of their livelihoods...and their lives. The boy suspects these rustlers have murdered his father, Milk River Bill Harmon, and the law is too crooked to get any straight answers.

Fresh off a breakup, Taylor Manning accepts a yearlong teaching position in Cougar Point, Montana, and plans to focus on herself, avoid men, and return home a changed woman. That’s before she meets Russ Palmer, a local rancher who’s as stubborn as he is handsome. With his old-fashioned attitudes about women, Russ is the last man Taylor could imagine dating, and the feeling seems to be mutual. So why can’t she seem to get him off her mind?

Tales of the Texas Rangers is a 20th-century Western old-time radio and television police procedural drama that originally aired on NBC Radio from 1950 to 1952 and later on CBS Television from 1955 to 1958. Film star Joel McCrea voiced the radio version as the fictitious Texas Ranger Jace Pearson, who uses the latest scientific techniques to identify criminals. His faithful horse Charcoal (or "Charky") helps Pearson to track down the culprits.

From the current king of the sexy, hard-driving, Western adventure! The legendary Sheriff Ben Stillman series continues.... Things have heated up since the last time Ben Stillman brought peace to Clantick, Montana Territory. It's been two years since he left to join the Pinkerstons, and now there's a group of bloodthirsty cowboys who think they own the town. When the ruthless desperados shoot down a helpless, feeble-minded friend of Jody Harmon, it's the last straw. Something's gotta be done.

A traveling prospector wandering around California looking for gold spends a few peaceful days with a man hiding a sad story.

It was just another night in the small boomtown of Bradshaw. A prospector by the same name discovered gold in a nearby mine, and the small town sprouted in the middle of nowhere. Like wild mushrooms popping up in the middle of a dead bark, the town grew rapidly and developed a rowdy reputation. It attracted all sorts, from desperate men trying to find their fortune, to rowdy, lawless types that tried to escape theirs. The town of Bradshaw drew them all in, with the promise of striking it rich or at least evading the law.

Trying to recover from the grief over the death of his wife, Cade McCall settles in Dodge City, "Hell on the Plains". While drunk, Cade loses the saloon that he owns in partnership with Jeter Willis, rupturing a friendship that had stood for years. Caught up in the infamy of lawlessness and gun slinging that is Dodge City, Cade fights the battle against his own despair, and against the Slater Brothers who are trying to take over the town.

A collection of timeless Westerns from some of the most well-known authors of the genre, including Zane Grey and Max Brand: "The Little Gold Miners" by Joaquin Miller, "Bulger's Reputation" by Bret Harte, "The Leaf of Red Rose" by W.H.H. Murray, "The Secret of Macarger's Gulch" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Californian's Tale" by Mark Twain, "Twelve O'Clock" by Stephen Crane, "The Vengeance of Padre Arroyo" by Gerturde Atherton, "A Deal in Wheat" by Frank Norris, "The Caballero's Way" by O. Henry, and more.

Doing time in Texas is no picnic. But getting sent to The Walls in Huntsville is a fate worse than hanging. If the guards don't kill you, the prisoners will. And if it weren't for the fact that the man who framed Hank Fallon and murdered his family could be inside The Walls, Hank would never step one foot in that heinous helltrap - let alone go undercover as an inmate. But this isn't just another assignment. This is his chance for revenge.

"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will simply try to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." Prologue to All Quiet on the Western Front.

Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression, of betrayal, guilt, and intrigue, begins with a bomb that kills its intended target, a hated Russian minister of police, along with a number of innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape.

A lawless land. Criminals running wild. Murder is rampant. One man can solve the problems facing the Old West. That man is United States Marshal Morgan Porter. The name Morgan Porter is famous in the Texas lore of the Old West. The saga of his exploits as a US marshal are legendary. Morgan Porter and his deputies changed the culture of lawlessness to one that was safe for law abiding men and their families. Ride with Marshal Porter as he tames the Wild West.

Wyatt Zane Brody, former doctor turned professional gambler, swore off care for his fellowman when he put away his doctor’s bag. That’s why amusement, not concern for the families who suffered, drove him to chase down a killer.

In 1885, while The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was becoming one of the best-selling American classics of modern times, Mark Twain began this sequel in which Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim head west on the trail of two white girls kidnapped by Sioux warriors. Fifteen thousand words into the work, Twain stopped in the middle of a sentence, never to go back. The unfinished story sat on dusty shelves for more than a hundred years until author Lee Nelson decided to finish it.