Dolly and Zane Grey

Popular western writer Zane Grey was a literary celebrity during his lifetime and the center of a huge enterprise based on his writing, which included books, magazine serials, film and stage versions of his stories, children's books, and even comic strips. But he did not create this enterprise alone. His wife, Dolly, guided and managed Grey's career. After editing and sometimes revising his handwritten manuscripts, she negotiated with publishers, oversaw contracts, directed arrangements with movie studios, and skillfully managed the considerable fortune derived from these activities.But perhaps the most important of Dolly's responsibilities was maintaining the facade of a conventional married life. Zane Grey's work was promoted as reflecting traditional middle-class values, and anything in his personal life that contradicted this image threatened to alienate his enormous public. And there was indeed something that endangered his success - his numerous affairs with other women, some of them lasting many years. Dolly knew all about these dalliances, and although both she and Zane took great pains to hide them the stress on their relationship was enormous. Much of their married life was spent apart, and their union was sustained largely by correspondence.Their letters - thousands of them, written over a span of thirty-nine years, from their first meeting in 1900 until Grey's death in 1939 - reveal the true nature of an unorthodox couple and the complex partnership between a hugely successful writer and the supportive, competent woman who managed his career and protected him from the worst consequences of his own nature.