True Grit.

“It is a delight,” wrote Walker Percy of Charles Portis’s western, True Grit; “Mattie Ross from near Dardanelle, Arkansas, is here to stay, like Huck Finn.” The novel follows the determined young Mattie as she sets out to avenge her father’s murder, a narrative that, as The Guardian notes, “begins where chivalry meets the frontier.” Set in the rugged American West, True Grit introduces the unforgettable character of U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, who was famously portrayed by John Wayne in the 1969 film adaptation—a role that earned him an Academy Award. Portis’s novel is widely celebrated for its distinctive voice, moral complexity, and enduring place in the American literary tradition.