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Unlike many Western novels which are often straightforward and stylized morality tales, Riders of the Purple Sage is a long novel with a complex plot that develops in many threads. The story is set in the canyon country of southern Utah in 1871. Jane Withersteen, a Mormon-born spinster, has inherited a valuable ranch and spring from her father, which is coveted by other Mormons in the community. When Jane refuses to marry one of the ( polygamous) Mormon elders and instead befriends Venters, a young Gentile rider, the Mormons begin to persecute her openly. Meanwhile, Lassiter, a notorious gunman, arrives at the Withersteen ranch in search of the grave of his long-lost sister, and stays on as Jane's defender while Venters is on the trail of a gang of rustlers that includes a mysterious Masked Rider. Jane is intent on preventing Lassiter from doing further violence and is eventually driven off her ranch as the persecution escalates, but she and Lassiter fall in love, Lassiter solves the mystery of his sister's death and the fate of her child, the Masked Rider is unmasked, and Venters finds his own romance. Along the way, Jane also finds time to adopt Fay Larkin, a young Gentile orphan who accompanies her and Lassiter at the end of the story.
The character of Lassiter is clearly recognizable as the archetype of the Western gunman hero; dressed in black, a loner, laconic and soft-spoken, combining a deep respect for women with a quick willingness to use his guns to dole out his own ideas of justice towards men. Modern readers may find Jane's idealistic pacifism somewhere between annoying and incomprehensible, but at the time the novel was originally published she was probably considered a radical feminist. In another sign of changing social values that may seem odd to modern readers, Grey completely sidesteps the question of whether Lassiter and Jane ever consummate their relationship.
Rainbow Trail, a sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage that reveals the fate of Jane and Lassiter and their adopted daughter, was published in 1915. Both novels are notable for their strong anti- Mormon sentiment, but in Rainbow Trail this theme is treated even more explicitly. The plots of both books revolve around the victimization of women in the Mormon culture. In some of his later Westerns, Grey treated Mormon men in a more neutral way, but here they are simply villains who use their religion as an excuse for greed and lust.
Riders of the Purple Sage has been filmed several times, most notably as a made-for-television movie in 1996 starring Ed Harris as Lassiter and Amy Madigan as Jane.
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