American Nights
Entertainment
Grant Overton
By GRANT OVERTON
About Books and Authors
AMERICAN NIGHTS
ENTERTAINMENT
WHEN WINTER COMES
TOMAIN STREET
THE WOMEN WHO MAKE
OUR NOVELS
Fiction
ISLAND OF THE INNOCENT
THE ANSWERER
WORLD WITHOUT END
THE THOUSAND-AND-FIRST
NIGHT (In Preparation)
American Nights
Entertainment
BY
GRANT OVERTON
New York, 1923
D. APPLETON & CO. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY GRANT OVERTON
First Printing, September, 1923.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.
Bound in Interlaken-Cloth
This Book
IS DEDICATED TO BOOKSELLERS
AND BOOKREADERS EVERYWHERE
BY THE AUTHOR AND THE PUBLISHERS
WHO HAVE JOINED IN ITS PRODUCTION
[Pg vii]
Preface
THIS book is written because of the rapidspread of the habit of reading books, developingin its march an interest in the personalities ofauthors. Indeed, the existence of this book is an evidenceof the quick contagion of the book-readinghabit, since four publishing houses have joined tomake possible the pages that follow.
Few developments of the early part of this centuryare more encouraging than the new attention tobooks. The increase in book stores, the very largeincrease in the number of books sold, the multiplicationof libraries and their great patronage, thesuccess of new book review pages and periodicals—allare signs of the change that has come about inrecent years, and perhaps especially during and sincethe war of 1914-18.
And in a narrower department, no development ofrecent years has borne a more cheerful promise thanthe resolution of four publishers to associate themselvesin an enterprise the disinterestedness of whichthe reader is invited to assess for himself.
The entire responsibility for the estimates andopinions offered (where they are not directly attributed)is mine. I have tried to tell the truth,use my imagination legitimately