In 1928 Harold Bell Wright released Long Ago Told, a collection of Papago Indian stories which he had collected and edited. I believe Long Ago Told is a timeless treasure which deserves wider attention even today, but it was not a novel at all, much less the kind of novel that made Wright popular. That was followed in 1930 by Exit, a confusing and convoluted tale of the West that Wright adapted from a play he had written for his second son, Paul. Both the story line and the moral issues are hard to find. And Wright followed that in 1932 with The Devil’s Highway, a book of otherworldly science fiction. Though the setting was supposedly in the West, the story was not. That same year Wright seemed to make a conscious effort to get back to the kind of story that had made him popular before. But Ma Cinderella lacked the lightness, sweetness, and charm of his best selling books. Ma Cinderella, the lead character, was much less likable than Aunt Mollie, in The Shepherd of the Hills, or Auntie Sue, in The Recreation of Brian Kent, or for that matter, any of the heroes of the earlier books. There was no all-good character his readers could identify with.

     In 1934 Wright followed ten years of comparatively unsuccessful books with an autobiography, To My Sons, his poorest selling book, though valuable and fascinating today.

     I believe Wright would never have been popular in the first and second decades of the 20^th century if he had written books like the ones he wrote in the third and fourth decades. This slump may have been inevitable for a man who wrote from a moral passion. By the early 1920s Wright seems to have said all he had to say--up to that time in his life--and had said it as many ways as he could think of. If the country lost some of its innocent idealism in the First World War, the "roaring twenties" and the great depression, so had Wright become older and more complex. But wiser commentators than I are probably correct; if he had written books in the latter half of his career like those he wrote earlier, they probably would not have sold well anyway.

     Finally in 1942, just two years before his death, Harold Bell Wright finished The Man Who Went Away, a book with much of the charm, clear story line, and passionate spiritual values of his early books, though the spiritual values were now far more mature, broad, and philosophical. Many fans today consider it his best book. But by 1942 times truly had changed and Wright’s loyal fans who might have bought anything he wrote 25 years earlier had now moved on to other things.

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      Another group of collectors value Harold Bell Wright because he and his stories are an important part of their regional history. This is especially the case in and around Branson, Missouri; Imperial Valley, California; and Tucson, Arizona. But regional interest in Wright extends to all of the Ozarks, Arizona and Southern California.

     Quentin Burke, president of the Harold Bell Wright Society, suggests a third group of collectors and students, "whose principle interest and concern is the lack of acceptance among academia for the author. Here and there academia relents, and agrees that being popular does not mean an author should be ignored." The Harold Bell Wright Gazette frequently reports successful and unsuccessful efforts to gain recognition for Wright's contributions.

     A fourth group collects Harold Bell Wright's books and related items simply because they are collectible and sometimes profitable. Until recently, many book dealers ignored Wright and failed to learn which titles were valuable. Many collectors through the 1980’s and early 1990’s are eager to swap stories of walking into used bookstores and buying $400 or even $1500 Wright titles for less than $10. Few things produce more obsession than a good treasure hunt. 

    And the real fanatics, people who write books and create web sites about Wright and who lurk around the Harold Bell Wright items on eBay, often fit into all four categories.

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Last updated 05/26/11