This has got to be the authoritative biography on Robert E. Lee. Ms. Sanborn shows all sides of Lee: the husband, father, soldier, friend, and loyal Virginia resident.
Including primary sources ad nauseam, this book gives you all the silver and none of the dross.
If any person dismisses Lee as a traitor (which I heard a man say) they show their ignorance of a noble life. They should also read this book.
Also, the author does not hesitate to state the shortcomings of Lee (although there weren't many).

I picked this book up and after reading realized I had read it years before, but what the hey! It is so very good and very interesting. The chapters on Grizzly Adams, and R.W. Emerson in the Mariposa Grove are truly interesting. John Muir was quite the dude and this park would not be the same without him. I found Carelton E. Watkins photos on the web and have used them as wallpaper for my computer. So when the going gets tough I go to Yosemite in cyberspace!!

This is the classic story by Wister (1860-1938) of the ranch foreman, known only as the Virginian, his courtship of Molly Starkwood, the "schoolmarm" from Vermont, and his conflicts with Trampas. In 1977, the Western Writers of America voted this novel as the top western novel of all time. It probably started the whole genre (even if one counts the pulp fiction popular in the late 19th century). Historians have always pointed out that there never really was a "Code of the West." This was just something thought up by writers, journalists, and film makers. The West was made up of both good and bad men, just as today. But, in my opinion, this book challenges that concept. Wister based his characters on real people he interacted with in the West a few years earlier. There really were men like the Virginian. There really were people who, unknowingly, followed a Code (just as there are today).

The book "The Virginian" being a western book, I was initially skeptical of it being any better then shoot em up giddyup types of books. However I was quickly taken aback by the fact that they never fully identified the background of the Virginian.
Throughout the entire book he remains a mystery, his whole life a mystique aside from what everyone knew which was he came from the eastern part of the country. With a persona that screams Mad Max "The Road Warrior" he is a modest person who goes for the gusto in his ventures during the book. Working in Wyoming his boss Judge Henry, is not very strong as far as standing up for himself is concerned. When a rival rancher hires some bandits to rob a couple of horses from Henry's ranch, it's the Virginian to the rescue. Eventually the book which includes many other swashbuckling adventures, waters down to a duel between the leader of the Bandits and the Virginian. He even has time for a lovelife in the craziness of the west when he hooks up with a school teacher by the name of Molly Stark. The wedding does not go quite as planned though and I suggest you read the novel to eventually find out what happens. A terific story that has been made into two motion pictures, the plot in Owen Wisters story has more twists then a hostess truckload of strudel. For the person that liked the "Lonesome Dove" mini series this book is for you.

The Virginian is a classic because of the superb characters who fill its pages. The protagonist, known only as the Virginian, embodies a code of manly virtue. He is unique. Without Mary's civilized purity or the Virginian's wild perfection, the book would be a dry, uninteresting Western, full of stereotypical cowboys swaggering around with their pistols on their hips. Instead of a Buffalo Bill, Wister gives us a young man who loves Shakespeare and Dostoevsky and who does unpleasant things because he must, not because he enjoys them. I really enjoyed this book.