David Harum

In a small New York town, the shrewd country banker and horse trader who gives this novel its name dispenses homespun wisdom in thick rural dialect and lives by his own tart version of the Golden Rule. A gruff old bachelor, David Harum takes a young man named John Lenox under his wing, and around their friendship Westcott weaves a tender romance that softens the book’s comedy of Yankee bargaining. Beneath the horse trades and sharp bank talk runs a surprising vein of kindness, for Harum’s rough manner hides real generosity. Published in 1898, just after the author’s death, it became one of the era’s great American bestsellers and a favorite among businessmen who saw their own world in its pages. Free to read in PDF and EPUB.