Zane Grey

Pearl Zane Gray was born January 31, 1872 - October 23, 1939 in Zanesville, Ohio. He had a happy upper-middle childhood, as his father was a successful dentist.
But,there was an occasional fistfight with boys, that teased him about his first name being.... Pearl. He later replaced it with his mothers maiden name.... Zane.

A scout for the university of Pennsylvania, convinced him him to play on the college baseball team, and study there. He graduated in 1986 with a degree in dentistry.
 Seems Zane did not have much fondness for the idea of replicating his father’s safe but unexciting career path.

 Searching for an alternative, Grey decided to try his hand at writing.
 His very first attempt was an uninspiring historical novel about a family ancestress.
At that point, Grey might well have been doomed to a life of dentistry, had he not met Colonel C. J. “Buffalo” Jones in 1908, who convinced Grey to write his biography.
More importantly, Jones took him out West to gather material for the book, and Grey became deeply fascinated with the people and landscape of the region.

Though Riders of the Purple Sage was Grey’s most popular novel, he wrote 78 other books during his prolific career, most of them Westerns. He died in 1939, but Grey’s work continued to be extraordinarily popular for decades to come, and by 1955, his books had sold more than 31 millions copies around the world.

With the possible exception of "Riders", today Grey’s books are little read, and most modern readers find them insufferably pompous, moralizing, and sentimental.
Nonetheless, Grey played a pivotal role in creating the Western genre that, in the hands of more recent authors like Louis L’Amour, continues to charm many dedicated fans.