R

OBERT BENCHLEY, the able young

vaudevillian and one of the editors of "Life", may still be seen at first nights. So far, in manner and approach, he is more critic than actor, but you never can tell with these fellows. S. FOSTER DAMON is a young graduate of Harvard University who wrote a book on William Blake which was both thoughtful and beautifully written. He is a poet of growing importance. HUGH WALPOLE has been traveling on the Continent this winter. His "The Old Ladies" is still on the best seller list, his "Portrait of a Man with Red Hair" will be published in the autumn. RUTH MANNING-SANDERS is a young lady who resides in England, writes a lovely · round hand, and has had many poems published in the English periodicals. ROBERT H. DAVIS, editor of "Munsey's", has been adept over a period of years at discovering authors. He has many activities. One of them is photography. The portraiture photography of authors is his recreation. He has made over sixty lifesize portraits of leading writers in this country. He uses no artificial lights, and does not retouch his negatives. His collection of letters from authors is extraordinary there are some thirty two thousand of them. From these he intends soon to draw data for the production of a history of American authors over a period of the last twenty five years. He also intends to write some boy's stories, we hear.

J. O'H. COSGRAVE, of the editorial staff of the New York Sunday "World", was born in Australia, grew up in Auckland, New Zealand, and began editing a socialpolitical weekly, "The Wave", in San Francisco in 1889. This was an audacious disturber of traffic and convention which numbered among its staff of sharpshooters Arthur McEwen, Ambrose Bierce, and other celebrities of that brilliant period in Cali

fornia history.

During its troublous career, "The Wave" served as teething ring for a number of literary aspirants such as Frank Norris, Gelett Burgess, James Hopper, Juliet Wilbor Tompkins, Bob Davis, and others who subsequently contrived reputations for themselves in New York. At the demise of this publication in 1900, Mr. Cosgrave emigrated to New York, was made managing editor of "Everybody's Magazine", then published by the new firm of Doubleday, Page for John Wanamaker. He participated in the great periodical reform movement, helped Thomas W. Lawson write "Frenzied Finance", the most successful magazine serial on record, was the second or third discoverer of O. Henry, and assisted at the incubation of a number of the best sellers of the last twenty years, for which he insists, however, he is not to blame. During the years on "Everybody's", Mr. Cosgrave exposed such national institutions as escaped Sam McClure, Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and Ray Stannard Baker, revealing the heinous errors of the meat and tobacco trusts, the sins of Wall Street, of the bucket shops, helped the suffrage movement to its feet, and put Judge Ben Lindsey before the public. That was the period in which magazine editors helped run the United States and were accustomed to hold consultations with Roosevelt and Taft. Later he presided over the Butterick magazines, was one of the procession of Collier editors, and joined the "World's" editorial staff in 1912. 1912. Outside journalism Mr. Cosgrave is interested in Chinese paintings, music, mysticism, and the Dutch Treat Club. His wife is Jessica G. Cosgrave, head of the Finch and Lenox Schools. He has never in all his life, he declares, made a speech.

GEORGE JEAN NATHAN is said to be about to retire from active editorship of "The

American Mercury", and to sail for Europe, where he will live, study, and producewith the assistance of foreign climes - a novel. Perhaps this novel business is libel; but someone told us. LEONORA SPEYER has been living in New York City this winter and, we hear, entertaining the literary folk with her usual lavish hospitality. ALEXANDER BLACK, author of "Stacey" and "The Great Desire", makes a personal confession of youthful hurry in his paper on "How Old Is Genius?" He does not tell the whole truth by admitting that his first story was printed when he was nine or that he was an active newspaper reporter at sixteen. "It may be", he says, "that living down early stuff has given me a prejudice, not so much against natural precocity as against being in a hurry. If a man could run his literary career the way Longboat runs a marathon, there would be a better record. You will say that this is a fine theory-writing each thing as if you had all eternity for the job. So it is. As a theory it may be almost perfect. But I don't let myself be sarcastic about it. We shouldn't run, like Nurmi, with a stopwatch in our fist, but there's something, too, in not thinking we have to demonstrate. It is eagerness to make an impression that I have in mind. Meanwhile, there is one thing you can be sure of: Every sin against which we may warn youth has been committed by the great ones we bid youth to admire. This is awkward for the pontifical. Yet there is a nice point in itone that is plain enough not to need a preachment."

MAXWELL BODENHEIM, the poet, critic, and novelist, has recently published a new and striking story called "Replenishing Jessica". NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH, sister of Kate Douglas Wiggin and herself a well known writer of children's stories, was close to her sister in work and life for many years.

THE ORDER OF BOOKFELLOWS

An International Association of Readers and Writers THE STEP LADDER

A Monthly Journal of Bookly Ascent We have something of interest for every bookly-minded person. Just say you are interested.

When she and Mrs. Riggs went over their papers, they put many of them into a box marked for posthumous use. It is from this receptacle that Miss Smith has drawn much of the material to be used in her new book about her sister. FRANK L. PACKARD, one of the most popular of adventure and mystery story writers, is an inveterate golfer and traveler. He recently returned to his home in Canada after globe trotting and proceeded to begin on another story. His latest published volume is called "Running Special". GRANT OVERTON, now the fiction editor of "Collier's", still finds time occasionally to consider critically the authors whose work he passes on professionally, and other authors too, of course. RICHARD BURTON keeps his temper and his sense of humor in spite of an immense amount of labor. He writes us gaily:

-

one on

I find life mostly catching trains, south, east, west or north, in order to make a lecture. It's interesting work, but cuts fearfully into the time one wishes to give to writing books. Two such have been contracted for, long since the Bible, the other on American drama — and how they can ever get themselves done, the present scribe knows not. However, having perpetrated over twenty already, why worry? Surely, the public doesn't; and it is well to fall into line with others and philosophically declare that of the making of books there is no end — and, too often, no use!

As this is written, I am starting for my three months' job at the University of Minnesota, the only period I give that college. Ten weeks' solid booking for summer school work will follow; and by September, I shall again be east, ready to talk literature in these parts to all and sundry. There is no stagnation in such a program!

MARGUERITE WILKINSON is at present working on an anthology of Christmas poems. She has only recently published her new critical study, "The Way of the Makers". ROSE MACAULAY, the English novelist, made her first success in this country with "Potterism", and she has followed it consistently with books of great charm and ironic humor, such as her latest, "Orphan Island". HENRY BESTON, a native of Boston, is this year living and writing in New York City. He has purchased a plot of ground on the dunes at Eastham and plans to spend a summer on Cape Cod, then a summer in Spain. His fairy stories are (Continued on tenth page following)

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GOUVERNEUR MORRIS Spread Eagle and Other Stories. SCRIBNER. 1910.

Here is an author with a long list of published books and a breathtaking number of short stories. Gouverneur Morris, great-grandson of Gouverneur Morris, the Revolutionary statesman and United States Senator, was born in New York, February 7, 1876. He received his B.A. degree at Yale in 1898. His first book appeared when he was twenty one. Mr. Morris is well known to the readers of "Cosmopolitan", "The Metropolitan", "The Saturday Evening Post", "Collier's", and "Everybody's".

He

Short story writer, novelist, essayist, poet, and onetime playwright is Meredith Nicholson, who comes from Booth Tarkington's native state. was born at Crawfordsville, Indiana, December 9, 1866, and was educated in the public schools of Indianapolis. He received an honorary degree at Wabash College in 1901 and from Butler College in 1902, and was given his Litt.D. at Wabash in 1907. Mr. Meredith, a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, is probably best remembered as the author of that mystery novel, "The House of a Thousand Candles". His list of published works is impressive. "Good Housekeeping", "Collier's", "The Atlantic Monthly", "The Saturday Evening Post", "The Metropolitan", and "The Ladies' Home Journal" have at various times printed his short stories.

JAMES OPPENHEIM

James Oppenheim comes from St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was born May 24, 1882. For two years he was a student at Columbia University. In 1921 he married Gertrude S. Gertrude, the painter and novelist. His accomplishments are