Harold Bell Wright papers

Harold Bell Wright was America's leading romance author from 1903 to about 1923. It is estimated that of his nineteen books published between 1903 and 1942, as many as ten million copies were sold. Harold Bell Wright was born in Rome, N.Y. to parents William A. and Alma Watson Wright on May 4, 1872. After his mother died when he was ten years old, and his father abandoned him, he lived several years with various relatives and strangers, working for shelter and scraps of food. Wright attended Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio until the late 1890s when he was forced to leave school to combat a serious illness. He relocated to Missouri where he regained his health and started his preaching career. From 1897 to 1908 he served as a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). His preaching took him to Pierce City, Missouri; Pittsburg, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; Lebanon, Missouri; and lastly to Redlands, California. In 1902 Wright wrote his first book, , which he read to his Pittsburg, Kansas congregation, one chapter per week. What was published in 1903, sales were good enough that Wright almost immediately started writing . When that story was published in 1907, its sales broke publishing records and established Wright as America's top-selling author. The following year he left the ministry to pursue his promising writing career. While living in the Imperial Valley, Wright wrote several books including , his highest selling title. In 1920, after many years of illness, Wright moved to Tucson, Arizona where he believed the climate aided in his recovery. In Tucson he wrote several of his novels, such as {[1916]. In 1935 he returned to California, this time to San Diego where he resided until his death on May 24, 1944.