The Jucklins

The Jucklins is an 1896 novel by Opie Read. It was a best selling book in the United States (Read asserted that over one million copies were sold[3]), though it never appeared on the best-sellers list in The Bookman since its early and primary sales were of cheap paperback copies sold on trains and at newsstands.[1][4][5]

The Jucklins
AuthorOpie Read
LanguageEnglish
PublisherLaird & Lee (Chicago)
Publication date
January 28, 1896[1]
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages291[2]

The story is set in the backwoods of North Carolina. Teacher Bill Hawes lives with the Jucklins, a local farming family, including father Lim Jucklin, daughter Guinea, and son Alf.[6][7]

Read reported that he sold the book for $700 to publisher Laird & Lee. He needed the cash to pay off a poker debt.[8] A sequel of sorts, Old Lim Jucklin was released in 1905, and consists of a "collection of random observations and humors in the cracker-box philosopher manner."[8]

Adaptations

The novel was also adapted for the stage, and a version adapted by Daniel Hart debuted in Louisville, Kentucky in January 1897, produced by actor Stuart Robson.[9] This version did not get rave reviews,[10] and a wholly rewritten play by playwright Augustus Thomas (also produced by Robson) appeared in December of the same year.[4][11]

A silent film version of the novel directed by George Melford, and starring Winter Hall, Mabel Julienne Scott, and Monte Blue was released in 1921.

References
  1. Mott, Frank Luther. Golden multitudes: the story of best sellers in the United States, p. 201 (1947)
  2. Books Released During the Month, p. 184 (April 1896) The Bookman
  3. (28 December 1897). Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi, San Francisco Call ("I have never read any of Mr.Read's stories, although they often have been thrust insinuatingly into my lap by railroad newsboys and peanut butchers...")
  4. Stern, Madeleine B. Publishers for mass entertainment in nineteenth century America, p. 178 (1980)
  5. Tebbel, John William. A History of Book Publishing in the United States: The expansion of an industry, 1865–1919, p. 650 (1975)
  6. Applegate, Edd. American Naturalistic and Realistic Novelists: A Biographical Dictionary, pp. 337–38 (2002)
  7. Morris, Robert Lee. Opie Read, American humorist, 1852–1939, pp. 221, 224 (1965)
  8. (28 January 1897). Stuart Robson's New Play, The New York Times
  9. (14 March 1897). Music and the Drama, Kansas City Journal, p. 11, col. 1 (critical review of first version of play)
  10. (24 December 1897). Amusements, Salt Lake Herald, p. 8, col 5 ("Another dramatization of Opie Read's novel had been furnished Mr. Robson and produced with indifferent success, but the actor, clinging to the idea that there were dramatic possibilities in the character of Lemuel Jucklin, engaged Thomas to re-write the play entire.")
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