That Printer of Udell’s: A Story of the Middle West was published by the Book Supply Company in Chicago in 1903, Wright’s first novel. It was initially self-published after being rejected by mainstream publishers, and its subsequent commercial success launched both Wright’s career and the Book Supply Company as a major popular publisher.
Dick Falkner arrives in the town of Boyd City (a thinly disguised Springfield, Missouri) hungry, broke, and without prospects. He finds work in a print shop owned by George Udell, a practical Christian businessman who believes in charity as action rather than sentiment. Under Udell’s influence, Dick develops from a drifter into a civic leader — organizing relief programs for the poor, confronting the hypocrisy of churches that preach charity while ignoring the homeless, and eventually entering politics to implement social reform.
The novel’s argument is characteristic Wright: individual moral transformation is the engine of social change, and practical Christianity (feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, giving work to the unemployed) is more effective than either political radicalism or ecclesiastical piety. The book was enormously popular with readers who shared Wright’s distrust of both socialism and institutional religion, and who wanted to believe that individual virtue, applied practically, could solve social problems without systemic change.
Collecting That Printer of Udell’s
First edition (Book Supply Company, Chicago, 1903): Cloth binding. Wright’s debut.
Market values:
- First edition, good condition: $40–$120
- Later editions: $5–$15