Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
The dreaded message had come. The lank messenger, who had brought it from over Black Mountain, dropped into a chair by the stove and sank his teeth into a great hunk of yellow cheese. "Flitter Bill" Richmond waddled from behind his counter, and out on the little platform in front of his cross-roads store. Out there was a group of earth-stained countrymen, lounging against the rickety fence or swinging on it, their heels clear of the ground, all whittling, chewing, and talking the matter over. All looked up at Bill, and he looked down at them, running his eye keenly from one to another until he came to one powerful young fellow loosely bent over a wagon-tongue. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
She sat at the base of the big tree - her little sunbonnet pushed back, her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below. Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been steep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Last century story with truths for our times
I'm vacationing in a rustic cottage on a lake in Maine with my family.One quiet evening, the moon rising, and loons calling, I find this old book, its spotted and yellowed pages almost falling out and begin to read it. Well!I couldn't put it down. Maybe the setting and circumstance is why I've given this book a 5, but it is truly is a great story.Along the Kentucky/Virginia border 'civilization' is arriving.The mountain people have their own culture and rules of clan justice and they are about to discover the culture of the so-called civilized world.This is an absolutely fascinating view of tribal tradition clashing with the rule of law and proper living as the civilized world sees it.A young girl who has only known rude mountain life and morays meets and falls in love with an engineer from 'away' who is cultured, educated, well dressed, well spoken.Meanwhile, coal has been discovered in the Cove.Speculators from as far away as England come to cash in.Schools and stores and jails are built in the Gap.However, the once pure streams run black.All the while reading this, I thought of the parallel of today thinking that our culture, come hell or high water, is best for all.I wonder:to what end?

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine~
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine takes place in the Kentucky mountains, bordering Big Stone Gap, Virginia. It is a story of love, as well as change. At the heart of this novel are the Tolliver & Falin families, who have been in a feud with one another for as far back as anyone can remember. The story begins as life in the mountains is beginning to change..coal mining is starting to boom, and the oustide world is creeping into the simple ways of mountain life. A town is blossoming in Big Stone Gap Virginia..and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine connects the town with Lonesome Cove, home of the Tolliver family, and a pretty little mountain girl named June. When John Hale enters the Tolliver/Falin territory, June is immediately drawn to him. The entrance of this "furriner" will change June's life forever.

Not being from the region that the Trail of the Lonesome Pine is written about, I was definitely reading it from a "furriner" point of view. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is really two stories in one. Part of this novel is a love story, centering on a young girl, June Tolliver & her love interest John Hale, the "furriner." The other side of this novel focuses on what life is like for the "mountain people" and the effects of the coal mining boom, and the influx of foreigners into their way of life. Both stories are very interesting and blend well together. At times though, I felt the writing was hard to get through and difficult to follow. The last 1/4 of the book really picked up, and by the time the story concluded, I was glad that I read this and look forward to reading more by John Fox, Jr.

A Lovely Love Story
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is set in the Kentucky mountains of the 19th century. June Tolliver is a very poor young mountain girl who meets an engineer from the outside world. He takes June out of the mountains so she can go to school and get an education. He is also interested in mining coal in the Kentucky hills. The story of how their love for each other grows and of the Tolliver family's feud with the Falin's is a classic American tale. I read this story out loud to my teen-age children and they just loved it! This is the first of a trilogy by Fox.

An enchanting Tale
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine proves to be an enchanting tale about love. A tall pine tree stood in solitary splendor on the top of a mountain in Kentucky and through its fame lured a young engineer to find it and leaad Hale on a trail of love which I felt was an overall wonderful plot for this book. Since the plot of the book was set in Kentucky June and her family along with the many nountaineers had our good ole country accent which also portrayed that they had not received very much education. In a waaay I feel that it was an insult to Kentuckians knoweledge even though it did portray June's remarkable learning rate when Hale helped her to attend school. I think the beauty of the state could have been captured morewhile telling of how beautiful the land was while looking at the view of the lonsome pine. Many flowers in Kentucky are mentioned throughout the novel and June also had a flower garden built for her of Kentucky's wildflowers. Although I didn't like the waay the law stepped in during the Falins and Tollivers family feuds which continued throughout June's childhoodBecause I think their battles could have been a book by itself rather than to combine them with the love and romance of Hale and June even though they greatly affected their lives. I felt that the novel was deeply expressive in many ways and throughout all encounters portrayed by John Fox Jr. you were sure to experience the poetic side of life in the Kentucky mountains.

Bob Likes
Bob feels that this book was very good.Bob liked this book very much.This gripping tale of love and survival is deeply etched into the soul of every reader that reads this heart-wrenching novel.Fox tells a story of afacinating undying love for others and the Big Pine that always seems toknow the answers to life's most difficult questions.Bob encourages anyonethat likes a wonderful well wrote book to pick this one up, hold it closeto your heart, and never let go. ... Read more

Book Description
John Fox, Jr., was one of the first writers to use the mountains of southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky as a backdrop for his stories and novels about a people whose culture faced extinction. Writing was not a profession he chose quickly or painlessly—he was well into middle age when he made the decision and he struggled with his choice for a long time after—but he made quite a name for himself through his work.

This work is a biography of Fox. It draws from personal and family correspondence and covers his entire life, from his birth in Stony Point, Kentucky, in 1862, to his death from pneumonia in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, in 1919. His early life and education at his father's school, his two years at Transylvania University in Lexington, his transfer to Harvard and graduation in 1883, his work for the New York Sun and Times and smaller newspapers, and return home in the mid-1880s to work with his half-brother in the coal mines are all documented. It was also around this time that he began his first novel, A Mountain Europa, and over the next thirty years, wrote dozens of short stories and nine novels from the family home in Big Stone Gap, including Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (his first to gain the status of bestseller) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. ... Read more