Zane Grey was a disappointed aspirant to major league baseball and an unhappy dentist when he belatedly decided to take up writing at the age of thirty. He went on to become the most successful American author of the 1920s, a significant figure in the early development of the film industry, and central to the early popularity of the Western. Grey's personal life was as colourful as his best novels. Two backcountry trips into the Grand Canyon inspired his first Westerns, and he returned to Arizona annually for many years. His matching passion for sport fishing carried him to Mexico, Nova Scotia, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Australia. These trips were a canvas for the striking contradictions in Grey's life.