I nominate
The Shepherd of the Hills by
Harold Bell Wright.
This
epub version is available in the Patricia Clark Memorial Library.
Spoiler:
This quote is from Branson.com, a tourism site for Branson, Missouri:
Quote:
Harold Bell Wright, an ailing minister-author who traveled to the Ozarks for his health discovered much more than he sought in the hill country. As he regained his strength in the healthful, peaceful atmosphere, he began writing a manuscript which would become the fourth most widely-read book in publishing history. It would also spark a nationwide interest and bring the first wave of tourism into the Missouri Ozarks.
Wright was born in 1872 in Rome, NY. He traveled extensively in his early career as a minister and a writer. At one point, he pastored a church in Pittsburg, KS. He lived there when he discovered that he had tuberculosis.
Concern for his health was complicated by despondency over a flagging career as a minister and writer. A cure for both problems seemed to be offered in the milder climate of the Ozark Mountains.
In the spring of 1896, he traveled as far into the Ozark hills as the rails took him. The end of the line was Marionville, MO where he set off on horseback into the rugged hills. Turning back from a flood swollen White River, he sheltered at the homestead of John and Anna Ross on a ridge near Mutton Hollow.
He intended only to spend the night, but Wright stayed for the summer. He returned to the Ross homestead each summer for eight years as he slowly regained his health.
He was a witness of a drought in 1902, as the homesteaders were pushed to the edge of starvation when their crops were scorched, the streams dried and the game disappeared. The settlers' desperation led to a series of events which would form the nucleus of Wright's most famous book, The Shepherd of the Hills.
In 1904, Wright began recording his impressions of the settlers and the events which shaped their lives at his campsite in a corn field on the Ross homestead. The completed novel lay unpublished until 1907, when one of Wright's friends insisted on backing its publication in 1907.
The Shepherd of the Hills marked a spectacular turning point in Wright's literary career. The book's success was almost immediate. Millions of copies were sold in several languages, and four movies versions were filmed. Wright's 40-year career as a writer resulted in 19 books, many scripts for stage plays, and a number of magazine articles before his death in 1944.
The legend Harold Bell Wright began in a novel continues to live in a nationally popular attraction, the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead and Outdoor Theatre.
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