Per the author: "The book has one high ambition. It has tried to tell the sad story of the wilderness itself—to show, from the woodsman's view-point, the play of great forces which have been tearing down his home and turning it into the flesh and bone of cities." But this story is much more than that. It revolves around Silas Strong and his distaste for the modernization and destruction of his beloved forest surroundings, and how it pleases him to teach younger folk how to appreciate that which has been given us. He takes matters into his own hands, as only Silas Strong can do. Addison Irving Bacheller was an American journalist and writer who founded the first modern newspaper syndicate in the United States. He was a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York in 1882. - Summary from Book preface, Wikipedia, Roger Melin