Main-Travelled Roads

by Hamlin Garland

Introduction

Welcome to Project Gutenberg's edition of Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland. Garland produced several versions of this book during his life. The first was released in 1891, containing six short stories: A Branch Road, Up the Coolly, Among the Corn-Rows, The Return of a Private, Under the Lion's Paw, and Mrs. Ripley's Trip. In 1899, MacMillan released a new version of the book with three additions: The Creamery Man, A Day's Pleasure, and Uncle Ethan Ripley. The 1920 edition of the book added two more short stories: God's Ravens and A "Good Fellow's" Wife. The 1930 edition added The Fireplace and featured illustrations by Garland's wife.

The 1930 edition of Main-Travelled Roads is not in the public domain. The last version of the book in the public domain is the 1922 Border Edition, a reprint of the 1920 edition with a foreward written by the author. We used the 1922 Border Edition of the book for this transcription. A scanned version of this book is available on Hathitrust courtesy of The University of Michigan.

[Page ii] of this book lists other publications written by the author available through Harper & Brothers. All of those books are in the Public Domain. We appended a list of other books by the author which were not available through Harper & Brothers, yet also published before this book was printed, in a section called [Other Editions]. We have provided links to versions of the books available through Project Gutenberg. As of this writing, we are missing ten books written by Garland in the public domain, but we're always adding new titles!

The Introduction by William Dean Howells first appeared in the 1893 release of the book.

We used a web site on Hamlin Garland, created and maintained by professor Keith Newlin, to help compile the list of Garland's publications and the publication history of Main-Travelled Roads.

Our e-book has links at the top of each chapter, and the top of each part, designed to improve navigation. The links at the top of each chapter return the reader to the Table of Contents. The links at the top of each part send the reader to the next part. For example, if you want to reach part III of A Good-Fellow's Wife from the Table of Contents, you would click on the page number to send you to the top of the chapter. Click on part I to go to part II, then click on part II to go to part III. The link for the last part in each chapter will take you back to the beginning of the chapter.