[Illustration: MAXIMILLIAN FOSTER]
Besides all these there are Joseph C. Lincoln and Cyrus Townsend Brady,
the first one in high favor for his breezy stories of Cape Cod life
and character, redolent of the salt sea air, the latter for his many
entertaining tales of plain and desert; and Sewell Ford, who created
the slangy but very human “Shorty McCabe” and “Torchy”; and those two
pungent writers of Western episodes, Peter Kyne and Charles E. Van
Loan. Emerson Hough has given us rousing tales of the Middle and Far
West, of the Kentucky mountains and Alaska. Holman Day’s excellent
stories breathe of the Maine woods, and Roy Norton has rendered tribute
to the sea. Harris Dickson, a son of Mississippi, has woven into story
form some throbbing incidents of Southern history, and has depicted
numerous sunny corners of every-day existence below the Mason and Dixon
line. James Branch Cabell is a spinner of charming romances; some of
the best have a medieval French flavor. Harold Bell Wright is well
known as the author of “Barbara Worth” and several other books whose
sales have climbed into the hundreds of thousands. Richard Washburn
Child is a young American who wields a vigorous pen in the portrayal
of national character, and James Oppenheim, not to be confused with
the Englishman, E. Phillips Oppenheim, represents vital phases of
present-day city life. Joseph Hergesheimer has won a place among
writers by reason of his picturesque style and original invention. A
comprehensive list of American-born novelists must also include the
names of Leroy Scott, Henry B. Fuller, Frank H. Spearman, Earl Derr
Biggers and Arthur Reeve, all of whom have within late years produced
popular successes.
The roll of the makers of modern American fiction is a long one, yet
none can gainsay that the average of achievement is high.
_SUPPLEMENTARY READING_
THE MEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS.
_By Burton Rascoe_, Literary Editor, Chicago _Tribune_.
SOME AMERICAN STORY-TELLERS.
_By F. T. Cooper._
_THE OPEN LETTER_
As you finish the foregoing review of fiction writers, you may ask,
“Why do you make no mention of one of the best known and most widely
read of all our modern story-tellers--O. Henry?” We have reserved a
special place for him on this page. O. Henry occupied a position of
unique distinction among fiction makers, and it is only fitting that he
should have a place of his own in this number of The Mentor. As there
is in literature only one Edgar Poe and one Maupassant, so there is
only one O. Henry--and the gamut of life’s keynotes that his fingers
swept was wider than that of Poe and Maupassant combined. Tragedy,
Comedy, Mystery, Adventure, Romance and Humor--he knew them all, and it
was with no uncertain, amateur touch, but with the strong, sure stroke
of a master that he played in those varied keys. His Tragedy is grim,
his Comedy light and skilful, his Mystery baffling, his Adventure
absorbing, his Romance charming, and his Humor irresistible.
* * * * *
[Illustration: O. HENRY
(William Sydney Porter--from the latest photograph made of him)]
William Sydney Porter--for that was O. Henry’s real name--was born
at Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1867. His father was a doctor of
ability, and something of an inventive genius. His mother wrote poetry,
and her father was, at one time, a newspaper editor. There was nothing
unusual about this family outfit--it was quite ordinary, in fact, and
in no way explained the genius of O. Henry. Nor did his school days,
nor his term of employment as a clerk in a drug store. His boyhood
was like that of thousands. But, as we read of him: “In those days
Sunday was a day of rest, and Porter and a friend would spend the long
afternoons out on some sunny hillside sheltered from the wind by the
thick brown broom sedge, lying on their backs gazing up into the blue
sky dreaming, planning, talking or turning to their books and reading.
He was an ardent lover of God’s great out-of-doors, a dreamer, a
thinker and a constant reader.”
* * * * *
At eighteen years of age he went to Texas and, as he put it, “ran
wild on the prairies.” If he had any ambitions to write at that time,
he did not show them. He lived in an atmosphere of adventure, and he
loved to tell stories, but apparently just for the pleasure of it. He
was a good singer, a clever mimic, and something of a sketch artist.
But his pen had not yet begun to flow. From the Texas ranch he went to
Austin, where he engaged in newspaper work. After that came a period
of wandering--and then the New York life. He lived in two big rooms on
quiet Irving Place, three doors from Washington Irving’s old home--and
he found it lonesome. So he became a wanderer in New York, and he saw
and noted many things in the life of that city that no other writer
had taken account of. New York is better known to the world since O.
Henry lived there. His stories were written under pressure and with
great rapidity. He contracted to furnish the New York _World_ one story
a week for a year, and his product was so good that the contract was
renewed. During the same period he was contributing to magazines. His
total of stories amounts to two hundred and fifty-one, and they were
written during eight years. Then, in 1910, he died, leaving the world
enriched by a heritage of short stories that stand high among the
classic productions of their kind.
[Illustration: W. S. Woffat