Heart's Desire: The Story of a Contented Town, Certain Peculiar Citizens, and Two Fortunate Lovers

by Emerson Hough, Peter White (Introduction)

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Western stories; Fiction / Fantasy / General; Fiction / Fantasy / Epic; Fiction / Westerns;

367 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Emerson Hough was an American author best known for writing western stories and historical novels.

He married Charlotte Chesebro of Chicago in 1897 and made that city his home. During World War I, he served as a Captain with the Intelligence Service. He died in Evanston, Illinois, on April 30, 1923, a week after seeing the Chicago premiere of the movie The Covered Wagon, based on his 1922 book. Covered Wagon was his biggest best-selling novel since Mississippi Bubble in 1902. "North of 36", another Hough novel, later became a popular silent film as well, "making him one of the first Western authors to enter into the motion picture industry." He is buried in Galesburg, Illinois.

Asked in 1918 to provide some details of his own life, he replied in the context of World War I: "This is no time for autobiography of men of letters. This is the day of biography for men who have been privileged to act in the great scenes of today. It is the time for boys of 23. At least we can bless them and back them the best we know. I will not tell about myself. It is of no consequence."

Hough's hometown, Newton, Iowa, has honored him in several ways. A school named for him opened in 1926. Emerson Hough Elementary School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. His boyhood home bears a marker provided by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The school grounds include a playground with a western theme called Fort Emerson Hough. The local chapter of the Izaak Walton League also bears his name, as does a street, Emerson Hough Avenue in Lambs Grove, Iowa, a suburb of Newton.

In March 2010, the school board voted to close Emerson Hough School.Efforts to prevent its closure have included a fund raising and a Facebook page.

Reviews

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may have been an unusual story when it was written but it is now very dated. We've seen it many times before. The descriptions of the countryside were excellent.

[David Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an authentic novel of the Old West, written by someone who lived in it, and not long after it’s hey-day had passed. The universally acknowledged Cowboy Poet, Eugene Manlove Rhodes said of this novel, that Emerson Hough had almost created perfection.

The underlying motif of the elusive nature of the frontier is masterfully explored. The proverbial Garden of Eden Hough creates in Heart’s Desire is as desirable as it is short-lived. The loveable characters lazily, and jovially play out their lives in the beginnings of the World, and as voyeurs, we get to peer in as if we were there too -and what a beginning it must have been!

I place this up there on that shelf reserved for the best of the earliest Westerns that transcend the genre; along with The Virginian, Stepsons of Light, Paso Por Aqui, Hoops of Steel, and the Log of a Cowboy.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my review at my blog.