a story of a lincolnesque figure in stirring conflict

"Something of the instinctive antagonism which the Highland Scot feels for his Lowland countryman is inherent in the character of our own native mountain men. Perhaps this antagonism is partly a survival of primitive clan spirit, but certainly it has been strengthened and developed by the different conditions under which hill men and plain men have lived their lives. This factor of environment in the evolution of human character is strikingly illustrated in the Ozark Mountain story of Rose Wilder Lane which she calls Hill-Billy.

"Abimelech Baird, a hill man of the Missouri Ozarks, at the age of 20 quits his father's cabin on Baird's Peak and descends on the plain town of Millersville. Here he begins the practice of law, with scant learning but much native hill wisdom and no little native shrewdness. His rise in the community is sure and swift until he becomes infatuated with Bessie Miller, a "little scrap of prettiness, an' no more." Bessie precipitates a devastating situation which promises to be his undoing. The solution of this unhappy entanglement carries the tale to a triumphant close, which leaves this hill-billy the happy husband of a hill woman, while the weak and deceitful Bessie is awarded to Baird's chief enemy, the devious prosecuting attorney of the town." - New York Times, June 13, 1926, page BR9.

I give you (from another NYT review) "a rugged lawyer and a deceitful woman... a novel that thunders to a crashing climax" - Rose Wilder Lane's HILL-BILLY. This is a scan of my own copy; if anyone has a dust jacket they would like scan and share with me, I can edit the pdf file to include it. Feel free to download, save, and/or print for your own personal and non-profit use. By all means, feel free to read the book. The reviews are so glowing; I always thought the "thundering crash" was when you fell asleep while reading and the book fell to the floor...
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:47 PM