The Western Story: A Chronological Treasury consists of twenty Western stories spanning the years 1892 to 1994. For that generation of American writers who saw the frontier in the last century - including Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Owen Wister - it seemed exotic, strange, wonderful. Others, such as Frederic Remington and John G. Neihardt, reflected the clash between various Indian nations and pioneers.

These authors prepared the way for the founders of the first Golden Age of the Western story: Willa Cather, who wrote of pioneer life in Nebraska; Zane Grey, who combined wilderness experience with romance and the search for spiritual truth; B. M.

Bower, who portrayed the cowboys and frontier women she knew growing up in Montana; Max Brand, who created dramas in which the psychological and spiritual meaning of life was more important than the physical terrain; and Ernest Haycox, who combined character and drama with historical accuracy.

Another generation of writers perpetuated this first Golden Age: Peter Dawson and T. T. Flynn, who began writing Western stories in the 1930s; Walter Van Tilburg Clark, who created a masterpiece in The Ox-Bow Incident; Dorothy M. Johnson and Les Savage Jr., who experimented with making the Western story still more realistic; and Louis L'Amour, whose visibility and popularity won legions of new readers to the genre.

Humanity, depth, and verisimilitude were already part of the Western story when Will Henry, Elmer Kelton, and T. V. Olsen came on the scene to intensify these qualities in their own stories even as they experimented with new perspectives. And Cynthia Haseloff's story (written especially for this collection), with its symbolism and its simplicity, may be the harbinger of a second Golden Age.