WHO HAVE WRITTEN FAMOUS BOOKS***


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LITTLE PILGRIMAGES AMONG THE MEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN FAMOUS BOOKS


      *      *      *      *      *      *

_Book Lovers' Series_

[Illustration]

_Little Pilgrimages Among the Men
Who Have Written Famous Books_

_Little Pilgrimages Among the Women
Who Have Written Famous Books_

[Illustration]

_L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
200 Summer Street
Boston, Mass._

      *      *      *      *      *      *


[Illustration: Reproduced, by permission, from "A Pair of Patient
Lovers."--Copyright, 1901, by Harper & Brothers.

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.]


LITTLE PILGRIMAGES AMONG THE MEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN FAMOUS BOOKS

by

E. F. Harkins

Illustrated







[Illustration]

Boston
L. C. Page & Company
MDCCCCII

Copyright, 1901, by
L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)

All rights reserved

Typography by
The Heintzemann Press Boston

Presswork by The Colonial Press
C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston




PREFACE


_The aim of this book is to present to the reading public sketches of
some of its American literary heroes. There are heroes young and old;
but in literature, especially, age has little to do with favorites. At
the same time, it will be noted that the subjects of these sketches
occupy places in or near the centre of the literary stage. The lately
dead, like Maurice Thompson; the hero of the last generation, like
Edward Everett Hale; the young man who has made his first successful
flight--these do not come within the scope of the present work. So, if
some reader miss his favorite, let him understand that at least there
was no malice in the exclusion._

_A part of the aim has been to present the social or personal as
well as the professional side of the authors. Many of the anecdotes
commonly told of well-known novelists are apocryphal or imaginary.
Care, therefore, has been taken to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Wherever it was possible, preference has been given the statements of
the authors themselves._

_The sketches are arranged chronologically, that is, in the order of
the authors' first publications. No other arrangement, indeed, would
seem fair among so gifted and popular a company, writing for a public
that discriminates while it encourages and enjoys._




  CONTENTS


                                  _Page_

  Preface                              5
  William Dean Howells                11
  Bret Harte                          27
  Mark Twain                          43
  "Lew" Wallace                       59
  George W. Cable                     75
  Henry James                         91
  Francis Richard Stockton           107
  Joel Chandler Harris               123
  S. Weir Mitchell                   139
  Robert Grant                       155
  F. Marion Crawford                 169
  James Lane Allen                   185
  Thomas Nelson Page                 201
  Richard Harding Davis              215
  John Kendrick Bangs                231
  Hamlin Garland                     247
  Paul Leicester Ford                263
  Robert Neilson Stephens            279
  Charles D. G. Roberts              299
  Winston Churchill                  317




  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                         _Page_

  William Dean Howells           _Frontispiece_
  Bret Harte                                 27
  Mark Twain                                 43
  "Lew" Wallace                              59
  George W. Cable                            75
  Francis Richard Stockton                  107
  Joel Chandler Harris                      123
  S. Weir Mitchell                          139
  Robert Grant                              155
  F. Marion Crawford                        169
  James Lane Allen                          185
  Thomas Nelson Page                        201
  Richard Harding Davis                     215
  John Kendrick Bangs                       231
  Hamlin Garland                            247
  Paul Leicester Ford                       263
  Robert Neilson Stephens                   279
  Charles G. D. Roberts                     299
  Winston Churchill                         317




WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS


Mr. Howells has reached that point of life and success where he can
afford to sit down and look back. But he is not that sort of man. He
will probably continue to work and to look forward until, in the words
of Hamlet, he shuffles off this mortal coil.

William Dean Howells was born in Martin's Ferry, Belmont County, Ohio,
March 1, 1837. He has therefore reached the ripe age of sixty-four.
When he was three years old his father moved from Martin's Ferry to
Hamilton and bought _The Intelligencer_, a weekly paper. Nine years
afterward he sold _The Intelligencer_ and moved to Dayton, becoming
proprietor of the _Dayton Transcript_. This paper had been a
semi-weekly, but Mr. Howells changed it to a daily; and his son William
went to work for him. It was William's business to rise at four in the
morning and sell the paper about town. But the _Transcript_ proved a
failure, so the Howells family left Dayton and moved into the country
on the banks of the Miami, where for a year a log-cabin was their home.

Mr. Howells tells a characteristic story of those struggling days,
"When I was a boy," he said some years ago, "I worked on my father's
paper. Among other things, I set type. Those were days of great
struggle for all of us. The paper was not profitable, and ours was a
large family. My tastes and ambitions were all literary, and I wanted
to write a story. Instead of writing it and then setting it up in type,
I composed it at the case and put it in type as I invented it. We
printed a chapter of it weekly in the paper, and so it was published
as fast as I got it up. I tried to get three or four chapters ready
in advance, but I could not do it. All I could possibly accomplish
was to have one installment ready every time the paper went to press.
This went on for a long while, and that story became a burden to me.
It stretched out longer and longer, but I could see no way to end
it. Every week I resolved that that story should be finished in the
next week's paper; every week it refused to be finished. Finally I
became positively panic stricken, and ended it somehow or other. The
experience discouraged me to some extent. I made up my mind that I
