[AMERICAN COWBOYS]. WISTER, Owen (1860?1938).?The Virginian. A Horseman of the Plains.?New York: The Macmillan Company, 1902. 8vo. Frontispiece and 7 plates by Arthur I. Keller. Original full tan cloth, front board and spine stamped in red, black, and gilt (spine toned and somewhat edgeworn, boards rubbed, and somewhat soiled, front hinge starting, a few gutters overopened, a few creases in text). FIRST EDITION of the first true fictional western that paved the way for Zane Grey and other western novelists. ?Although a novel, this book probably created more impressions of what a cowboy was like ? even among cowboys ? than any other work, fact or fiction.? (Reese, Six Score 116).