The Sea of Grass

It is set in New Mexico in the late 19th century, and concerns the clash between rich ranchers, whose cattle run freely on government-owned land, a prairie "sea of grass", and the homesteaders or "nesters", who build fences and try to cultivate the soil for subsistence farming.

It is an epic portrayal of the end of the cowboy era in the American Southwest on the Great Plains.

Against this background is set the triangle of cattle rancher Jim Brewton, his wife Lutie Cameron from St. Louis, and Brice Chamberlain, an ambitious local federal judge.

Richter casts the story in Homeric terms, with the children caught up in the conflicts of their parents.

The novel was adapted in 1947 as a film of the same name, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.