Owen Wister (1860-1938), American writer, best known for his novel about the American West, The Virginian (1902). He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and educated at Harvard University. Wister practiced law in Philadelphia from 1889 to 1891. Visits to Wyoming and a stay of several years in New Mexico and Arizona provided him with material for short stories and novels about the West, however, and by the mid-1890s he had established a literary career. The Virginian, his greatest success, was a best-seller for years, had a ten-year run in a stage version, was several times made into a motion picture, was the basis of a television series (1962-1971), and remains a prototype of stories about the West. Wister's other writings include the novel Lady Baltimore (1906) and a biography of his Harvard classmate Theodore Roosevelt, Roosevelt, The Story of a Friendship (1930).