The Women Who Make Our Novels

MODERN AMERICAN WRITERS ———
THE WOMEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS


BY GRANT M. OVERTON
NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1922 Copyright, 1918, BY MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY —— First printing December 12, 1918 Second printing April 25, 1919


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.