Harold Bell Wright

Born on May 4, 1872, in Rome, New York, Harold Bell Wright became one of the best-selling American authors of his era. Before reaching fame as a novelist, he worked as a minister, and that background shaped the moral and spiritual themes that run through much of his writing.

Wright found a wide readership with novels that spoke to ordinary readers and often centered on small-town life, personal character, and the pull between traditional values and modern change. He is widely noted as the first American author to sell a million copies of a novel, and his success helped show how large the market for popular fiction had become in the early 1900s.

Although his reputation faded after the middle of the 20th century, his influence was substantial in his own time. The Shepherd of the Hills, one of his best-known books, became especially closely linked with the Ozarks and helped fix that region in the American imagination. Wright died on May 24, 1944.