Among the many literary lights which the south has given us is James
Lane Allen. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1849, and comes of
one of the old Virginia families. Shortly after the Civil war broke out
Mr. Allen’s father lost his fortune, and James in consequence had to
work and attend school simultaneously. He graduated with honors from
the Transylvania university, Lexington, in 1872. Then he began to teach
for a livelihood. Subsequently he was called to a professorship in
Transylvania university, and later was a professor of Latin and higher
English at Bethany college, West Virginia. In 1884 he went to New York
to make literature his profession. He was then unknown in that city,
but soon gained recognition as one of the most poetic and dramatic of
American novelists. Of his many books The Choir Invisible, A Summer in
Arcady, and Aftermath, are perhaps the most in demand by the reading
public.