The Shepherd of the Hills was published by the Book Supply Company in 1907, and it was a phenomenon: one of the first American novels to sell over a million copies, establishing Harold Bell Wright as the most popular author in the country — a position he held for nearly two decades, despite (or perhaps because of) the complete indifference of literary critics.
The novel tells the story of a cultured stranger — known only as “the Shepherd” — who arrives in the Ozark hill country and takes up residence among the simple, hardworking mountain people. He carries a burden of guilt and sorrow (connected, it eventually emerges, to a son who wronged a local woman years before) and finds healing in the landscape and community of the hills. The local characters — Old Matt, Young Matt, Sammy Lane, the Bald Knobbers — are drawn with an affection that borders on idealization, but Wright knew the Ozarks firsthand (he had lived there as a minister) and his landscapes have genuine authority.
Wright was a minister who turned to fiction as a way of reaching a larger audience than his pulpit could provide, and the novel is frankly didactic: it celebrates rural virtue over urban corruption, simplicity over sophistication, and Christian faith over secular doubt. These themes resonated powerfully with the American reading public of 1907 — a public anxious about industrialization, urbanization, and the perceived erosion of traditional values.
The novel made the Ozark region a tourist destination — the area around Branson, Missouri still trades on its association with the book — and has been adapted for film three times (1919, 1928, 1941).
Collecting The Shepherd of the Hills
First edition (Book Supply Company, Chicago, 1907): Cloth binding with illustrated frontispiece.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $100–$400
- Without jacket: $20–$60
- Later editions (numerous): $5–$15