CHAPTER XXXV

_Mary Heaton Vorse_ 386

INTRODUCTION

This book, the rather unpremeditated production of several months’ work, is by a man who is not a novelist and who is therefore entirely unfitted to write about women who are novelists. Several excuses may be urged; the author is, by general agreement, young. He has to do with many novels, being, indeed, a sort of new and strange creature, a literary reporter self-styled, a person connected with a newspaper and charged with the task of describing new books for the readers thereof. As he could make no critical pretensions he had to fall back upon a process peculiar to newspaper work, the attempt at a simple putting before the public of facts, of things lately said and done--in short, of news. He had to regard a new book as a piece of news to be communicated as honestly and as entertainingly as any other occurrence. And so, here. He has tried to be a good reporter of the personalities, performances and methods of work of some of the best known American women novelists.

An effort has been made to include in this book all the living American women novelists whose writing, by the customary standards, is artistically fine. An equal effort has been made to include all the living American women novelists whose writing has attained a wide popularity. The author does not contend, nor will he so much as allow, that the production of writing artistically fine is a greater achievement than the satisfaction of many thousands of readers. It may be more lasting; it is not more meritorious; and to attempt to institute comparisons between the two things is absurd. The critic may be justified in treating of Edith Wharton and ignoring Gene Stratton-Porter. The literary reporter who should do such a thing doesn’t know his job.

It is, therefore, to be feared that this is no book for highbrows. But a lower forehead and a broader outlook have their advantages. In the striking popularity of a particular storyteller a thoughtful observer may see important and significant evidences of the tendencies of his time. And that may be much more worth his while than the most careful speculation as to who will be read fifty years from now.

The order in which authors are taken up in the book is accidental and therefore meaningless. The reader is recommended to follow his own inclination in perusing the chapters. They are entirely detached from each other, as are the subjects considered except for an occasional reference, in discussing one, to another’s work. These references, and in fact all the discussions of various books, are to be taken as expository and not critical. If a thing is stated to be good, bad or indifferent the statement is made as a statement of fact and not of personal opinion.

The justification of this book is the need of it. It is ridiculous that there should be nothing easily accessible about such writers as Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Kathleen Norris, Mary Johnston, Mary S. Watts, Anna Katharine Green, Clara Louise Burnham, Amelia E. Barr and Edna Ferber. The condensations of _Who’s Who in America_ are dry bones; books on living American writers are all “studies” or compilations of a highly selective sort; their authors want to be revered by posterity as persons of wonderful critical perception and judgment. The authors themselves have not the time to satisfy their readers’ curiosity and their publishers hesitate lest they may not remain their publishers!

And so the literary reporter steps in. Some of the chapters in this book, generally condensed in content, have appeared in the columns of _Books and the Book World_, the literary magazine of _The Sun_, New York, of which he is the editor. In their preparation he has been wonderfully helped by the authors themselves and by other individuals and publishing houses, for which he makes acknowledgment and returns his thanks in a note elsewhere in the book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

My indebtedness to various persons and sources is repeatedly made manifest in the text. Only the co-operation of publishers has made possible the preparation of these sketches in a short time. I wish particularly to thank the following for important help:

Houghton Mifflin Company and Mr. Roger L. Scaife and Mrs. Helen Bishop-Dennis for material on Mary Roberts Rinehart, Eleanor H. Porter, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Mary Johnston, Mary Austin, Willa Sibert Cather, Clara Louise Burnham and Demetra Vaka.

Doubleday, Page & Company and Mr. Harry E. Maule for material on Ellen Glasgow, Kathleen Norris, Gene Stratton-Porter, Corra Harris, Helen R. Martin, Sophie Kerr, Marjorie Benton Cooke, Grace S. Richmond and Harriet T. Comstock.

The Macmillan Company and Mr. Harold S. Latham for material on Alice Brown and Mary S. Watts and Zona Gale.

Harper & Brothers and Miss Hesper Le Gallienne for material on Gertrude Atherton, Margaret Deland and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.

The Century Company for material on Alice Hegan Rice, Alice Duer Miller and Eleanor Hallowell Abbott.

Frederick A. Stokes Company and Mr. William Morrow for material on Gertrude Atherton, Edna Ferber, Honoré Willsie and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Dodd, Mead & Company for material on Anna Katharine Green, Gertrude Atherton, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Eleanor Hallowell Abbott.

Henry Holt & Company and Miss Ellen Knowles Eayrs for material on Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

Charles Scribner’s Sons for material on Edith Wharton.

Little, Brown & Company for material on Mary E. Waller.

THE WOMEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS