Harold Bell Wright

Harold Bell Wright (May 4, 1872 – May 24, 1944) was a best-selling American writer of fiction, essays, and nonfiction. Between 1902 and 1942 Wright wrote 19 books, He also maintained a home in Palm Springs, California.

Later life and death From 1914 to about 1933 Wright lived mostly in Tucson, Arizona. Wright's land on Tucson's east side became the Harold Bell Wright Estates subdivision and the streets bear names of some of his fictional characters and book titles such as Printer Udell, Barbara Worth, Shepherd Hills, Brian Kent, and Marta Hillgrove. A small city park in the neighborhood is named for him. His home has been restored and is now a private residence.

From 1935 until his death in 1944, Wright lived on his "Quiet Hills Farm" in or near Escondido, California. He traveled much, staying for months at a time in primitive camps, vacation homes, hotels or resorts, in such places as Riverside, San Diego, Palm Springs and Benbow, California; Tucson and Prescott, Arizona; Hawaii; and Barbados. Wright usually lived one or two years in a location before using it as the setting for one of his novels.

Wright struggled most of his life with lung disease. He died of bronchial pneumonia in Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California on May 24, 1944, twenty days after his 72nd birthday, and was buried in the Cathedral Mausoleum, in Greenwood Memorial Park, in San Diego.

Book sales compared to other authors In 1945 Frank Luther Mott developed a system to compare top selling books from 1665 (Golden Multitudes, the Story of Bestsellers in the United States). To make comparisons possible, Mott defines a bestseller as a book with sales equal to one percent of the US population.

His ranking: Charles Dickens, 16 bestsellers; Erle Stanley Gardner, 7; Sir Walter Scott, 6; and James Fenimore Cooper, Gene Stratton Porter, and Harold Bell Wright, 5 each.

Scott and Dickens were not American authors, and Gardner's successes came later than Wright's. By Mott's reckoning Harold Bell Wright was one of only three American authors to write five best sellers from the arrival of the pilgrims in America through the first quarter of the 20th century. And Wright's total book sales were higher than Cooper and Porter. No American beat, or quite matched, Harold Bell Wright's record until Erle Stanley Gardner, whose career peaked 30 years after Wright's.

Literary criticism Wright's biographer, Lawrence V. Tagg (Harold Bell Wright: Storyteller to America, Westernlore Press, 1986), gathered a collection of contemporary attacks on Wright.

Owen Wister’s comments are representative: “I doubt if the present hour furnishes any happier symbols [of the quack novel] than we have in Mr. Wright [and The Eyes of the World]. It gathers into its four hundred and sixty pages all the elements ...of the quack-novel. It is,” Wister says, “stale, distorted, a sham, a puddle of words,” and “a mess of mildewed pap.” It was also number one on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list for 1914. In 1946, Irvin Harlow Hart wrote, "Harold Bell Wright supplied more negative data on the literary quality of the taste of the fiction reading public than any other author. No critic has ever damned Wright with even the faintest praise." (Hundred Leading Authors, p. 287)

Wonder Stories panned Wright's only science fiction novel, The Devil's Highway, in 1932, saying "If not for the mawkish sentimentality, and endless moralizing of this book, it might have been an interesting piece of work". Amazing Stories, however, found the novel "a very creditable attempt at combining two almost incompatible conceptions: The psychic and the physical" and concluded that The Devil's Highway "is quite enjoyable, as it is logical and exceedingly well written".

California Historical Landmark Wright's Tecolote Rancho Site is California Historical Landmark number 1034. A plaque reads:

NO. 1034 TECOLOTE RANCHO SITE (Imperial Valley home of Harold Bell Wright) - Prolific author Harold Bell Wright purchased 160 acres here in 1907. While living in a tent he built Rancho El Tecolote, constructing a woven arrowweed studio in 1908 and a ranch house in 1909. From 1907 to 1916 he wrote three best sellers, including the historical novel, The Winning of Barbara Worth, a chronicle of desert reclamation and the Colorado River flood of 1905. As Wright’s most successful and important book, it brought the Imperial Valley and its agricultural wealth to the attention of the nation. The book’s heroine Barbara Worth became an icon for the region.

Published works That Printer of Udell's Book Supply Company, 1902–03 The Shepherd of the Hills Book Supply Company, 1907, illustrated by Frank G. Cootes The Calling of Dan Matthews Book Supply Company, 1909 The Uncrowned King Book Supply Company, 1910 The Winning of Barbara Worth Book Supply Company, 1911, illustrated by Frank G. Cootes Their Yesterdays Book Supply Company, 1912, illustrated by Frank G. Cootes The Eyes of the World Book Supply Company, 1914, illustrated by Frank G. Cootes When a Man's a Man A. L. Burt Company, 1916 The Re-Creation of Brian Kent Book Supply Company, 1919 Helen of the Old House D. Appleton and Company, 1921 The Mine with the Iron Door D. Appleton and Company, 1923 A Son of His Father D. Appleton and Company, 1925 God and the Groceryman D. Appleton and Company, 1927 Long Ago Told: Legends of the Papago Indians D. Appleton and Company, 1929 Exit D. Appleton and Company, 1930 The Devil's Highway D. Appleton and Company, 1932 Ma Cinderella Harper and Brothers, 1932 To My Sons Harper and Brothers, 1934 The Man Who Went Away Harper and Brothers, 1942

Filmography The Eyes of the World (1917) The Shepherd of the Hills (1919, also director) When a Man's a Man (1924) The Mine with the Iron Door (1924) The Re-Creation of Brian Kent (1925) A Son of His Father (1925) The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) The Shepherd of the Hills (1928) The Eyes of the World (1930) When a Man's a Man (1935) The Calling of Dan Matthews (1935) The Mine with the Iron Door (1936) Wild Brian Kent (1936) Secret Valley (1937) It Happened Out West (1937) The Californian (1937) Western Gold (1937) The Shepherd of the Hills (1941) Massacre River (1949, uncredited) The Shepherd of the Hills (1964)