TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of January 30, 1939

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SONG OF YEARS
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Cover of SONG OF YEARS

SONG OF YEARS

by Bess Streeter Aldrich · Appleton-Century

The state of Iowa was still young and wild when Wayne Lockwood came to it from New England in 1851. He claimed a quarter-section about a hundred miles west of Dubuque and quickly came to appreciate widely scattered neighbors like Jeremiah Martin, whose seven daughters would have chased the gloom from any bachelor's heart. Sabina, Emily, Celia, Melinda, Phoebe Lou, Jeanie, and Suzanne are timeless in their appeal-too spirited to be preoccupied with sermons, sickness, and sudden death. However, the feasts, weddings, and holiday celebrations in Song of Years are shadowed by all the rigors and perils of frontier living. Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel, originally published in 1939, captures the period in Iowa of Indian scares and county-seat wars, as well as the political climate preceding the Civil War.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.