Riders of the Purple Sage is an acknowledged western classic. Although it is a book of some complexity, it encompasses the themes that have since been witnessed on a thousand movie screens: the strong, silent and incorruptable cowboy, the fallen woman with the heart of gold, the greedy land baron.

Grey was deeply concerned with the loss of wilderness, and the stirring tale of the love of the fast-drawing Lassiter for the gentle Jane Withersteen is set against the majesty of untamed Utah.