9 h 26 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 9 h 26 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What can love change in a neighbourhood where money is short, but a good heart still counts?
In A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill, Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice brings warmth and gentle humour to a Southern world of ordinary neighbours. Hardship sits beside affection, and people matter more than their addresses. This is a romance built around the possibility that love can change not just a relationship, but a person.
Rice looks at a poor but spirited community with a kindly eye. Her comic touch makes room for life's hard parts without letting them fill every corner. The appeal lies in that balance: sweetness alongside struggle, kindness alongside need, and the hope that character can grow even when circumstances remain difficult.
What you’ll discover
- A neighbourhood with spirit Enter a Southern setting where short purses do not define a person's worth.
- Love beyond courtship Explore a romance that treats love as a force for personal change.
- Humour beside hardship Find a gentle comic touch that leaves room for the weight of poverty.
- Kindness at the centre Spend time with fiction that values a good heart over a good address.
- Another age to consider Read with a thoughtful eye for the period's attitudes to class, gender, and race.
Who will love it
Readers who love warm, funny Southern stories will enjoy this novel, with its lively heroine, old houses and big-hearted, eccentric neighbors.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Kentucky spring and a motherless girl
- A wild ride ends at the railroad gates
- A rainy night at the Cant-Pass-It
- Chick the ash-barrel boy sees too much
- A promise to Daddy and a burned letter
- An unlikely marriage to the Doctor
- Old love wakes up on a Christmas night
- Money, honor and a bank that fails
- Kindness is Miss Lady's way of changing lives
- Humor and rhythm shape the telling
Who’s who
- Miss Lady CarseyA bright, outdoor-loving Kentucky girl who loves her old family home and her father, and wants a life that matters.
- Colonel Bob CarseyHer stout, peppery father, who spoils her, fishes on Sundays and wants her never to be unhappy.
- Donald MorleyA charming, restless rich young man who wants a home and a purpose, and who is drawn into a shooting.
- Chick FlathersA small, ragged street boy who cannot speak plainly, worships Miss Lady and wants to be a criminal until he sees what crime means.
- Myrtella FlathersA fierce cook who quarrels with everyone, supports her brother's family and loves Chick far more than she lets on.
- Doctor John Jay QueeringtonA serious scholar devoted to his enormous history of English, who wants order, quiet and a devoted young wife.
- Noah WickerMiss Lady's slow-spoken boyhood friend, who becomes a lawyer and quietly stands by those he trusts.
- Mrs. SequinDonald's society sister, who wants a grand house, a good marriage for her daughter and everyone arranged properly.
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- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
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- Hardcover
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A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice · 1912
A headstrong Kentucky girl, a skittish colt and a railroad crossing set two lives on a collision course.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
Would you ride a half-broken colt toward a railroad crossing just to win a race? Miss Lady Carsey does, on a bright Sunday in a Kentucky spring, and that one gallop changes her whole life.
A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 30 min4 h 20 min fast, 6 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 78,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1912by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Kentucky spring and a motherless girl
The book opens on Thornwood, the old Carsey mansion on Billy-goat Hill. Colonel Bob Carsey sits on the porch making a mint julep and bellowing for his servant Jimpson, who is late with the ice.
The heart of the house is the Colonel's daughter, called Miss Lady. Her mother died when she was born, so the Colonel has been father, mother and playmate ever since. She can fish, ride and shoot as well as any man in the county. A boarding school could not hold her, so she does her sums with a stick in river sand. What marks her out is simple. She is usually happy.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1912
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6 h 10 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Rice, Alice Caldwell Hegan. A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romance-of-billy-goat-hill.
Rice, A. C. H. (2026). A romance of Billy-Goat Hill. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romance-of-billy-goat-hill (Original work published 1912)
Rice, Alice Caldwell Hegan. A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romance-of-billy-goat-hill.
@book{rice2026romance,
author = {Rice, Alice Caldwell Hegan},
title = {A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romance-of-billy-goat-hill},
note = {First published 1912}
}
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What is A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill about?
It follows Miss Lady Carsey, a high-spirited Kentucky girl, and Donald Morley, a charming drifter. A shooting in a saloon, a bank failure and a poor boy named Chick tie together the families of Thornwood and Bean Alley.
Who is Miss Lady in the book?
Miss Lady is the nickname of Colonel Bob Carsey's daughter. Her father could never choose a name for her, so servants and neighbors called her Miss Lady, and she refused to give it up.
What is Billy-Goat Hill?
It is the hill outside a Kentucky city where the story is set. Thornwood, the Carsey mansion, stands below Angora Heights, and poor families live in Bean Alley, near the dump heap.
The author
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
1870–1942 · American novelist
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice was an American novelist born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1870. She lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and died there in 1942. She wrote Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, published in 1901, Mr. Opp, published in 1909, and A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill, published in 1912.
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