Western fiction (Genre/Form Term)
- Westerns (Fiction)
- Broader heading: Fiction
Saricks, J.G. Readers' advisory to genre fiction, 2009: p. 314 (westerns are novels set in the western United States primarily from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the twentieth century; they feature the adventures of cowboys, scouts, Indians, settlers, and lawmen, as they explore the clash between civilization and anarchy in mythic stories of men and the land)
Britannica online academic edition, Nov. 5, 2012 (western: a genre of novels and short stories, motion pictures, and television and radio shows that are set in the American West, usually in the period from the 1850s to the end of the 19th century; in literature the western story had its beginnings in the first adventure narratives that accompanied the opening of the West to white settlement shortly before the Civil War; accounts of the Western plainsmen, scouts, buffalo hunters, and trappers were highly popular in the East; novel (types of novel/western): the peculiar and perennial appeal of the western lies in its ethical simplicity, the frequent violence, the desperate attempt to maintain minimal civilized order, as well as the stark, near-epic figures from true western history, such as Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, and Jesse James)
GSAFD, 2000 (Western stories. UF Westerns. Use for post-19th century works set in the 19th century American West)
Fiction that features the American West during the period of westward expansion.