Zane Grey — Born to the West: A Reference Guide by Kenneth W. Scott (review)

Reviews 145 One wonders, too, whether, in a possible sequel to this novel, Colonel Barnes will remain committed to the Chief’s dream of technological subju­ gation of man and nature, or whether old Jack’s spirit will be reborn in him. JERRY A. HERNDON, Murray State University Zane Grey — Born to the West: A Reference Guide. By Kenneth W. Scott. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979. 179 pages, $21.50.) Zane Grey scholars know Kenneth W. Scott as the author of one of the first and best attempts to apply the methods of serious literary criticism and intellectual history to Grey’s career. Now he has placed us even further in his debt with a nearly exhaustive bibliography of Grey’s major fiction, films, and critical writings about Grey that will prove to be the single most useful item in the literature. Until now, the best bibliography in print has been the one in Frank Gruber’s Zane Grey: A Biography (1970), which gives a handy chronology of Grey’s life, as well as listing his books, films, stories,and nonfiction. We still need Gruber, for Scott lists no nonfiction and no juvenile fiction. Scott’s filmography is a vast improvement on Gruber’s, but his greatest achievement, and the one to which he devotes by far the greatest space, is a chronological annotated bibliography of virtually every interpretive comment on Grey since 1904. The bibliography is an eloquent testimonial not only to Scott’s industry, but also to the seemingly infinite resources of the New York Public Library, where most of the work was accomplished, for it includes fugitive listings from such obscure publications as the Exhibitors Daily Review and Harrison’s Reports. There are, inevitably, a few omissions, the least regrettable of which are several items by this reviewer in this journal, in Rendezvous, and in Brigham Young University Studies. More serious omissions include Graham St. John Stott’s BYU Studies article, Danny Goble’s University of Oklahoma master’s thesis, and Paul Carter’s illuminating discussion of Wanderer of the Waste­ land in his Another Part of the Twenties. Commenting on the current state of Zane Grey studies, Scott notes with approval the stirrings of interest in Grey over the past decade within the scholarly community, an interest which has borne fruit in a number of insightful essays. There are those who would argue that Grey’s career cannot sustain the kind of microscopic scrutiny that Scott’s bibliography seems to encourage, but a look at Scott’s listings and the provocative research sug­ gestions in his introduction indicate that Zane Grey scholarship is yet far from the point of diminishing returns. GARY TOPPING, Utah State Historical Society ...