The Shepherd of the Hills is a book written by Harold Bell Wright. The plot surrounds the wilderness and the difficulties faced by ordinary people on the frontier and depicts the lives of mountain people living in the Ozarks. The main plot revolves around the relationship between Grant "Old Matt" Matthews Senior and Dad Howitt, an elderly, mysterious, learned man who has escaped the buzzing restlessness to relocate from the city to Mutton Hollow, a rural area. Mad Howard, son of Shepherd, had a love for Old Matt's daughter and guilt over abandoning her drove him insane, leading him to flee to the Ozarks and hide in the woods. The Shepherd is suffering a mental breakdown of his own over the presumed death of his son. On Dewey Bald, Mad Howard dies and is buried in an unmarked area of a cave. Now, a backdrop storyline surrounds a pretty girl, Sammy (Samantha), and Jr. Young Matt marries and has children. Now, the story will take you to a special painting, which was hidden by the Shepherd. But, from whom Shepherd is hiding the painting, how the story takes a turn to Sammy, and who is she? These questions can be answered when readers will read the book!
Harold Bell Wright was an American author of fiction, essays, and nonfiction who lived from May 4, 1872, to May 24, 1944. He had an extremely successful career, however, it was generally forgotten or neglected after the middle of the 20th century. He is credited as being the first American author to sell a million copies of a book and the first to earn $1 million from writing fiction. Wright produced 19 books, several plays, and several magazine pieces between 1902 and 1942. Wright's stories inspired more than 15 films, including Gary Cooper's first significant motion picture, The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), and John Wayne's The Shepherd of the Hills (1941). He composed a theatrical story titled That Printer of Udell's in 1902 while serving as pastor of the Christian Church in Pittsburg, Kansas. He intended to present one chapter of the story to his congregation at subsequent Sunday night meetings. Wright resigned as pastor of the Redlands, California, Christian Church in 1905 after the success of The Shepherd of the Hills, his first book to sell one million copies. He then relocated to a ranch close to El Centro, California, and spent the remainder of his life penning popular novels.
