Head to the Internet Archive book download page. Don’t judge the ebook by the wonky, auto-derived Internet Archive preview. Download the EPUB format book!
Top Horse of Crescent Ranch is a 1942 title by Howard L. Hastings. It is not a plot-heavy book, but a pleasing read nevertheless. The first edition print publication is 248 pages. While there are many chapters, they are short. The title fell into the public domain of the United States due to non-renewal of copyright. It is also public domain in countries where the copyright period is “life plus 70” years.
It was written during the same time period as My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara (1941). Both titles are set on Wyoming ranches. The child characters in each book do some unsupervised range riding. Each author clearly loves horses and stresses good treatment of them! Otherwise, they are completely different reads.
The author is best known as an illustrator. A few titles illustrated by Mr. Hastings are public domain and available from Gutenberg.org.
I obtained the book as part an eBay lot of more well-known horse titles. It didn’t look terribly interesting with no dust jacket and plain blue boards. It sat about on my bookshelves for years. Eventually, I read it, and enjoyed it.
I’ve been looking up titles from my collection on the rare chance of finding a non-renewed copyright. My first check is the Copyright Renewals Database hosted by Stanford University. Top Horse had no renewal listed! That meant further exploration was in order. It’s mind-numbing work, but search I did, and no renewal was found!
If you know a horse-crazy child (or adult) who loves to read, tip them the link!
Old books only live on if people find them and read them and share. Those who once enjoyed them are mostly dead. (A state I resemble after finishing making an ebook!)
The book is readable (with an appropriate app installed) on computers, phones, and tablets, or on an e-reader device. If you read with a Kindle device or the Kindle app; use Amazon’s Send-to-Kindle to auto-convert the epub.
If you need ideas for suitable epub-reading apps, find them on my Internet Archive publisher page. I’d love to hear what you think of the ebook if you try it!