Larry McMurtry’s most famous book is his 1985 novel Lonesome Dove, a frontier epic that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1986. The novel centers on two aging former Texas Rangers who lead a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. McMurtry intended the book to demythologize the Old West, yet it and an acclaimed miniseries adaptation in 1989 helped resurrect the western genre.
McMurtry first developed the story with director Peter Bogdanovich during the 1970s as a possible screenplay for a film starring James Stewart, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne. The movie never materialized, but about a decade later McMurtry returned to the idea as a novel. He wrote a sequel and two prequels.
McMurtry’s other famous books include The Last Picture Show (1963) and Terms of Endearment (1975).