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He was born in Zanesville, Ohio, a town founded by his mother's ancestors. Growing up there, he developed interests in fishing, baseball and writing, all which would later contribute to his acclaim. He won a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied dentistry to please his father, graduating in 1896. He went on to play for a while with a minor-league team in Wheeling, West Virginia. Additionally, his brother, Romer Carl Grey, played briefly in 1902 for the Pittsburgh PiratesThis article is on the baseball team. For the National Hockey League team ( 1925 1930), see Philadelphia Quakers. Also, the National Football League's Pittsburgh Steelers were named the Pirates from 1933 to 1940. The Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League.

While sporadically practicing dentistry, he often visited Lackawaxen, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania (the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is one of four states of the United States of America that is called a commonwealth. It has given its name to the Pennsylvanian time period in geology. Pennsylvania is called the Keystone State. Although Swed, to fish the upper Delaware RiverThe Delaware River is a river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It meets tide-water at Trenton, New Jersey. Its total length, from the head of the longest branch to the capes, is 410 miles (660 km), and above the head of the bay its length is 36. It was there where he met Lina Roth, who was to become his wife, whom he called "Dolly." With her help, he began to focus more on his writings, publishing his first fishing story in 1902. When they married in 1905, they moved to a farmhouse in Lackawaxen.

He became especially interested in the West in 1907Events January events January 6 Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo). January 14 An earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica kills more than a 1,000 January 23 Charles Curtis, after joining a friend on an expedition to trap mountain lions in ArizonaArizona was the 48th state admitted to the United States and is part of the Southwest United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, south and east of the Colorado River, bordering New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California and Mexico. Its major cities ar. Grey wrote steadily, but it was only in 1910Events January events January 13 The first live musical radio program. Lee De Forest broadcasts a live performance of Enrico Caruso from the Metropolitan Opera. January 26 ? Seine floods in Paris. February events February 8 The Boy Scouts of America is in, and after considerable efforts by his wife, that his first westernWestern fiction is a genre of literature that is typically set in any of the American states west of the Mississippi River and between the years of approximately 1860 and 1900. The Western got its start in the " penny dreadfuls" and later the " dime novel, Heritage of the Desert , became a bestseller. It propelled a career churning out popular novels about manifest destiny and the "conquest of the Wild West." Two years later he produced his best-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage ( 1912). He formed his own motion picture company, but in a few years sold it to Jesse Lasky who was a partner of the founder of Paramount Pictures. Paramount would make a number of movies based on his writings.

He became one of the first millionaire authors. Over the years his habit was to spend part of the year traveling and living an adventurous life and the rest of the year using his adventures as the basis for the stories in his writings. Some of that time was spent on the Rogue River in Oregon, where he maintained a cabin he had built on an old mining claim he bought. He also had a cabin on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona.

He was the author of over 90 books, some published posthumously and/or based on serials originally published in magazines. Many of them became bestsellers. One of them, “Tales of the Angler’s El Dorado, New Zealand” helped establish the Bay of Islands in New Zealand as a premier game fishing area.

Grey first visited New Zealand in 1926 and caught several large fish of great variety, including mako shark, a ferocious fighter which presented a new challenge. He established a base at Otehei Bay Lodge on Urupukapuka Island which became a magnet for the rich and famous. He continued to fish in New Zealand for many years and his prolific articles in international sporting magazines highlighted the uniqueness of New Zealand fishing which has produced heavy-tackle world records for the major billfish, striped marlin, black marlin, blue marlin and broadbill.

Zane Grey died in 1939 and was interred at the Union Cemetery in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where the National Park Service maintains the Zane Grey Museum.