American author (Pearl Zane Grey) is best known as a pioneer of the Western literary genre, which idealized the Western frontier and the men and women who settled the region. Following in his father s footsteps, Grey studied dentistry while on a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. Grey s athletic talent led to a short career in the American minor league before he established his dentistry practice. As an outlet to the tedium of dentistry, Grey turned to writing, and finally abandoned his dental practice to write full time. Over the course of his career Grey penned more than ninety books, including the best-selling Riders of the Purple Sage. Many of Grey s novels were adapted for film and television. He died in 1939.