Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Bookseller Created
Classics
Send as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingThe Virginian
Narrator
John Pruden
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
14 hours 12 minutes
Language
English
A strong, silent stranger rides into the lawless lands of the western frontier, battles horse thieves, deals with unyielding scoundrels, and wins the heart of a schoolmarm. Owen Wister's 1902 classic—the first great novel of the American West—is rich in moral drama and vernacular wit. His hero—like knights of old—lives by an enduring code of chivalry and is governed by quiet courage and a deep sense of honor.
Set in the vast Wyoming territory, this masterpiece helped establish the code of the West and its stereotypical characters: the genteel but brave cowboy, the pretty spinster from back East, and villains beyond redemption. The novel is also on record for incorporating the first known "shootout" in American literature.
In 1977, The Virginian was voted by the Western American Writers as the greatest western novel of all time. Brimming with action, romance, and atmosphere, it remains a classic of frontier fiction.
The scion of a wealthy Germantown family, Owen Wister (1860-1938) showed promise as a musician early in his life, but his father directed him into a career in banking and then the law. Plagued with neurasthenia, Wister took a variant of the "rest cure" of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, traveling to Wyoming on Mitchell's advice. From these experiences, Wister began to write short stories about the West. His Western writing culminated in the 1902 publication of The Virginian, the most popular Western ever. In addition to novels, Wister wrote short stories, operas, plays, poetry, and nonfiction, including biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington.
John Pruden is a professional voice actor who records audiobooks, corporate and online training narrations, animation and video game characters, and radio and TV commercials. His exposure to many people, places, and experiences throughout his life-from his wide array of jobs early in life; to his Army service as a UH-60 Black Hawk assault helicopter pilot; to his travels through forty-four U.S. states, South America, Europe, and Asia; to his experience in professional improv and competitive singing-provides a solid creative foundation from which to draw for his intelligent audiobook narrations and gritty but sensitive vocal characterizations. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, John's audiobooks include The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, which was chosen by the Washington Post as the best audiobook of 2011.