Showing results by author "Harold Bell Wright" in All Categories

Originally published in 1907, The Shepherd of the Hills is Harold Bell Wright's most famous work. In The Shepherd of the Hills, Wright spins a tale of universal truths across the years to the modern-day reader. His Eden in the Ozarks has a bountiful share of life's enchantments, but is not without its serpents.

This classic Western story takes place on a cattle ranch. When a mysterious stranger comes walking into town seeking employment at the Cross-Triangle Ranch, life changes for these simple country folk.

As a boy, Dick Falkner ran away from abject poverty and an abusive alcoholic father. Sixteen years later, he finds himself hungry of body and empty of spirit in a Midwestern town. Although he finds no help in this so-called Christian town, he is eventually taken in by George Udell, a local publisher and kindhearted man. Through hard work and Christian morals, this man, who becomes known as "that printer of Udell’s", rises above his past to a new, inspiring life with God.

This is a story about a young man's journey into manhood and the discovery of his true calling in life. The story asserts the essential human right of each person to determine the course his or her life should take. But sometimes civilization gets in the way and lives don't unfold naturally.

Strangers aren't well received in the Mutton Hollow neighborhood of the Ozarks. But there was something different about this old gentleman. The cut of his clothes revealed he was obviously from the world beyond the ridges.

Here is a land where a man, to live, must be a man. It is a land of granite and marble, strong stone and gold—and a man’s strength must be as the strength of the primeval hills. It is a land of oaks and cedars and pines—and a man’s mental grace must be as the grace of the untamed trees. It is a land of far-arched and unstained skies, where the wind sweeps free and untainted, and the atmosphere is the atmosphere of those places that remain as God made them—and a man’s soul must be as the unstained skies, the unburdened wind, and the untainted atmosphere.