cowboy stories
Frontier adventure fiction
Cowboy stories are tales set in the American Old West, featuring cattle herders, outlaws, sheriffs, and frontier life.
The genre emphasizes rugged individualism, frontier justice, and wide-open landscapes.
Cowboy stories span novels, films, and television: He grew up on cowboy stories and wanted to be a rancher.
Also called westerns.
- Buffalo BillScout turned showman
- dime novelsCheap sensational 19th-century fiction
- StetsonsWide-brimmed cowboy hats
- herdGrazing animals together
- dusty trailDry, powdery pathway
redemption arcs · pulp fiction · tall tale · lassos · radio serials · Wild West · lone ranger · rodeos · trail · moral dilemmas · frontier towns · campfires · sunset ride · homesteaders · Gunsmoke · cattle drives · tumbleweeds · rugged individualism
- American folklorePaul Bunyan, tall tales, folk heroes, John Henry, folk narratives
- folklorefairy tales, fairytales, folktales, folk tales, folk tale
cowboy storiesspace operas
Melodramatic science fiction subgenre
science fiction · cyberpunk · dystopian fiction · maritime adventures · sea stories
cowboy storiesliterary fiction
Prose emphasizing craft and depth
modernist literature · experimental fiction · avant-garde writing · stream of consciousness · postmodern fiction