Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country

by Irving Bacheller

Category: Fiction

Status: Available

Source: Public Domain — Project Gutenberg

About This Book

"Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country" by Irving Bacheller is a novel published in 1900. Set in New York's North Country region, this work became one of the top bestselling books in America during 1900 and 1901, selling 125,000 copies in its first four months. Originally drafted as a children's story and rejected by publishers, Bacheller revised it after the success of "David Harum," transforming it into what some call the first bestselling novel of the twentieth century.

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Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, Martin Robb, and David Widger

EBEN HOLDEN A TALE OF THE NORTH COUNTRY

By Irving Bacheller

PREFACE

Early in the last century the hardy wood-choppers began to come west, out of Vermont. They founded their homes in the Adirondack wildernesses and cleared their rough acres with the axe and the charcoal pit. After years of toil in a rigorous climate they left their sons little besides a stumpy farm and a coon-skin overcoat. Far from the centres of life their amusements, their humours, their religion, their folk lore, their views of things had in them the flavour of the timber lands, the simplicity of childhood. Every son was nurtured in the love of honour and of industry, and the hope of sometime being president. It is to be f

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About This Edition

This edition of Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country by Irving Bacheller is catalogued on Libreya under Fiction and runs approximately 88,543 words — about 443 minutes of reading at an average pace. It is sourced from Project Gutenberg, the world's oldest digital library of public domain literature, founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, and every text on Libreya has been verified to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. You can view the original Project Gutenberg edition here.

On Libreya, the text has been carefully formatted for comfortable reading on any screen — with consistent chapter navigation, adjustable font sizes, and four reading themes: light, sepia, dark, and night mode. Your reading position is saved automatically when you sign in, so you can pick up exactly where you left off across any device. The original text has not been altered in any way; what you read here is the same work as it appeared in its original published form.

About Classic Fiction

Classic fiction represents the highest achievements of literary imagination. The novels in this genre have shaped how generations of readers understand human nature, society, and the fundamental questions of existence. Reading 19th and early 20th-century novels offers far more than historical interest: these stories explore love, ambition, morality, and identity with an insight that remains startlingly relevant today. Authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Austen, Hardy, and Dickens wrote for readers much like us — people trying to make sense of a complicated world — and their observations on class, relationships, power, and conscience carry across centuries with barely diminished force. Classic fiction is also where the novel as an art form reached some of its greatest heights: innovative narrative structures, deeply realized characters, and prose styles that reward slow, attentive reading. These are not museum pieces. They are living works that continue to be discussed, adapted, and argued over because they capture something essential and enduring about human experience.