5 h 52 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a man's grand ambitions belong to a town where no one can keep a dream private?
Mr. Opp wants to make something worthwhile of his local newspaper. His hopes and daily work are tied to it, but he lives in a small American town where everyone knows everyone else. In Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice's novel, a struggling paper becomes the center of a dream that neighbors cannot help watching.
Rice tells his story with lively talk, comic touches, and affection for ordinary people. Trouble has a place here, but so does plain kindness. Beneath Mr. Opp's big plans lies a quieter question: what makes an ambition worth pursuing? The story looks beyond success and money to the heart of a man who wants to build something.
What you’ll discover
- A dream worth watching Meet Mr. Opp, whose hopes for his newspaper give everyday work a larger purpose.
- Neighbors who notice everything Enter a close-knit town where private hopes soon become part of the common conversation.
- Humor with a kind heart Enjoy comic touches and lively talk that keep the mood bright when trouble arrives.
- More than worldly success Look beneath grand plans to the plain kindness that gives ambition its human weight.
- Ordinary lives, warmly seen Spend time with humble people whose daily concerns receive both laughter and tender attention.
Who will love it
For readers who love gentle, humorous American fiction, small-town portraits, and stories about decent people, ordinary ambition, and the kindness of neighbors.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A small town shapes its people
- A dreamer and his newspaper
- Warm humor carries the telling
- The heart behind every ambition
Who’s who
- Mr. OppA small-town dreamer whose hopes and daily work are bound up with a local newspaper, and who wants to make something worthwhile of it.
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Mr. Opp
by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice · 1909
A small-town dreamer stakes his hopes on a struggling newspaper as his neighbors tease, help and watch.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 4
A small town shapes its people
Rice sets her story in the kind of small American town where everyone knows everyone else. In such a place, a man cannot keep his hopes private for long. Neighbors comment, advise and gossip, and each person's plans become a shared topic. This is the world that surrounds Mr. Opp.
She was born in Kentucky and wrote about Southern and border-state communities with a close, affectionate eye. Her readers in 1909 would have recognized the porches, the shops and the weekly talk. She gives such places a character of their own, as if the town were one more figure in the book.
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What is Mr. Opp about?
It is a humorous, kindly novel about a small-town man with big hopes and a local newspaper. It shows his neighbors, his struggles and the warmth that sits beneath ordinary ambition.
Who wrote Mr. Opp and when?
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice wrote it, and it appeared in 1909. She was an American novelist from Louisville, Kentucky, who also wrote Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.
Is Mr. Opp a true story?
No, it is a work of fiction. Rice drew on the feel of real American small towns and their people, but the characters and events are her own creation.
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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