Enoch Crane

BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Lamont ... was again beside her, pleading to take her home.
ENOCH CRANE
A NOVEL PLANNED AND BEGUN BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH AND COMPLETED BY F. BERKELEY SMITH
ILLUSTRATED BY ALONZO KIMBALL
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1916
Copyright, 1916, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Published September, 1916
It was my father’s practise, in planning a novel, first to prepare a most complete synopsis from beginning to end—never proceeding with the actual writing of the book until he had laid out the characters and action of the story—chapter by chapter.
This synopsis, which closely resembled the scenario of a play, he kept constantly enriching with little side-notes as they occurred to him—new ideas and points of detail.
So spirited were these synopses, and so clearly did they reflect the process of his mind, that by the few who saw them in the course of publishing consultations, or friendly confidence, they were remembered often after the finished novel had obliterated its constructive lines.
A scheme like this he had prepared for “Enoch Crane”—a story which, like “Felix O’Day,” he had very much at heart. Once he had begun a novel it occupied his whole mind. He lived—as it were—with the characters he was developing, to the exclusion of all other work. He would talk to me constantly of their welfare or vicissitudes, and was often in grand good-humor when any of them had proved themselves worthy by their wit, their courage, or their good breeding. They all seemed to be old personal friends of his, whom by some chance I had never met.