Publisher's Synopsis
The Top Selling Novels in the United States is a series of books containing the top 3 novels sold by year starting in 1900. This is the third book in the series and includes the novels The Virginian by Owen Wister, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch by Alice Hegan Rice and Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major. Each of these novels were bought from the shelves of old bookstores more than any other novels during the year 1902. All materials have been carefully preserved so you can enjoy some of the best literature gathered together in one book just as they were when first released.The Virginian describes the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch and is considered the first true fictional western ever written, aside from short stories and pulp dime novels, though modern scholars debate this. The Virginian paved the way for many more westerns by such authors as Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour and several others. The novel was adapted from several short stories published in Harper's Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post between Nov 1893 and May 1902.Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch is a 1901 novel by American author Alice Hegan Rice, telling of a southern family's humorously coping with poverty. The book was highly popular on its release, and has been adapted to film several times.Rice was inspired to write the book during her "philanthropic work in a Louisville, Kentucky slum area, where she met an optimistic and cheerful woman" who served as the model for the book's main character.The setting of the book is a white turn-of-the-century urban slum, with two somewhat wealthy individuals wanting to help the inhabitants. The title character is a widow with several daughters-named after the continents, because she thinks that geographical names are refined-and an employed young son, who dies before the middle of the book.Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall is a 1902 historical novel written by Charles Major. Following the life and romances of Dorothy Vernon in Elizabethan England, the novel became the year's third most successful novel according to The Bookman annual list of bestselling novels.
