Owen Wister

Owen Wister
Owen Wister, author of the Western novel The Virginian, and friend of Theodore Roosevelt
Born	(1860-07-14)July 14, 1860 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Died	July 21, 1938(1938-07-21) (aged 78) Saunderstown, Rhode Island
Occupation	Author; Attorney
Spouse(s)	Mary "Molly" Channing Wister (married 1898–1913, her death)
Children	Six children

Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American writer and "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing The Virginian.

Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a well-known neighborhood in the northwestern part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician raised at Grumblethorpe in Germantown. He was a distant cousin of Sally Wister. His mother, Sarah Butler Wister, was the daughter of Fanny Kemble, a British actress, and Pierce Mease Butler.

Wister briefly attended schools in Switzerland and Britain, and later studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter). Wister was also a member of The Porcellian Club, through which he became life long friends with Theodore Roosevelt. As a senior Wister wrote the Hasty Pudding's then most successful show, Dido and Aeneas, whose proceeds aided in the construction of their theater. Wister graduated from Harvard in 1882.

At first he aspired to a career in music and spent two years studying at a Paris conservatory. Thereafter, he worked briefly in a bank in New York before studying law; he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1888. Following this, he practiced with a Philadelphia firm but was never truly interested in that career. He was interested in politics, however, and was a staunch supporter of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1930s, Wister opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal.