Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West that focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned.

Set in Nevada in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a gripping story about the perils of lynch law and the fragility of civilized norms in the West. Outraged by reports of the murder of a rancher and the theft of cattle, a posse of vigilantes sets out to find the culprits but instead targets three strangers who are innocent of the crime. Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 1940, offers a powerful exploration of group...

Selections from Prize stories.