In The Winning of Barbara Worth, as in most of his books, Wright tended to be sentimental and flowery in his descriptions. The people of the times did not care that critics scorned his style, they loved his books. Of the thirty-five books that had sold more than 50,000 copies between 1905-1934, Harold Bell Wright had written five of them: The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909), The Winning of Barbara Worth (1911), The Eyes of the World (1914), and When a Man's a Man (1916). Only one other author had five books on the list — Gene Stratton Porter. Her Freckles (1904), The Girl of the Limberlost (1909), The Harvester (1911), Laddie (1913), and Michael O'Halloran (1915) were as sentimental and as descriptive as Wright's works, and were as popular. Both writers wrote about the common man, love of nature, and religious teachings, which reflect early twentieth-century tastes and ideas.