When Winter Comes to Main Street - 1

The Project Gutenberg eBook, When Winter Comes to Main Street, by Grant Martin Overton

WHEN WINTER COMES

TO MAIN STREET

GRANT OVERTON

AUTHOR OF “THE WOMEN WHO MAKE OUR NOVELS”

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

WHEN WINTER COMES TO MAIN STREET.

Press of

J. J. Little & Ives Company

New York, U. S. A.

FOR

GEORGE H. DORAN

WHO HAD THE IDEA

PREFACE

I have borrowed my title from two remarkable novels.

If Winter Comes, by A. S. M. Hutchinson, was published in the autumn of 1921 by Messrs. Little, Brown & Company of Boston.

Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, was published in the autumn of 1920 by Messrs. Harcourt, Brace & Company of New York.

I have not before me the precise figures of the amazing sales of these two books—each passed 350,000—but I make my bow to their authors and to their publishers and to the American public. I bow to the authors for the quality of their work and to the publishers and the public for their recognition of that quality.

These two substantial successes confirm my belief that the American public in hundreds of thousands relishes good reading. Without that belief, this book would not have been prepared; but I have prepared it with some confidence that those who relish good reading will be interested in the chapters that follow.

As a former book reviewer and literary editor, as an author and, now, as one vitally concerned in book publishing, my interest in books has been fundamentally unchanging—a wish to see more books read and better books to read.

From one standpoint, When Winter Comes to Main Street is frankly an advertisement; it deals with Doran books and authors. This is a fact of some relevance, however, if, as I believe, the reader shall find well-spent the time given to these pages.

Grant Overton.

19 July 1922.

CONTENTS

I	THE COURAGE OF HUGH WALPOLE	[15]
II	HALF-SMILES AND GESTURES	[33]
III	STEWART EDWARD WHITE AND ADVENTURE	[55]
IV	WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS	[68]
V	REBECCA WEST: AN ARTIST	[78]
VI	SHAMELESS FUN	[88]
VII	THE VITALITY OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART	[102]
VIII	THEY HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME	[118]
IX	AUDACIOUS MR. BENNETT	[133]
X	A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN	[152]
XI	COBB’S FOURTH DIMENSION	[166]
XII	PLACES TO GO	[187]
XIII	ALIAS RICHARD DEHAN	[196]
XIV	WITH FULL DIRECTIONS	[212]
XV	FRANK SWINNERTON: ANALYST OF LOVERS	[225]
XVI	AN ARMFUL OF NOVELS, WITH NOTES ON THE NOVELISTS	[244]
XVII	THE HETEROGENEOUS MAGIC OF MAUGHAM	[270]
XVIII	BOOKS WE LIVE BY	[293]
XIX	ROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH	[308]
XX	UNIQUITIES	[321]
XXI	THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN, STEPHEN MCKENNA	[334]
XXII	POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS	[347]
XXIII	THE BOOKMAN FOUNDATION AND THE BOOKMAN	[366]
	EPILOGUE	[372]
	INDEX	[373]

PORTRAITS

	PAGE
HUGH WALPOLE	[17]
STEWART EDWARD WHITE	[57]
REBECCA WEST	[79]
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART	[103]
ARNOLD BENNETT	[135]
IRVIN S. COBB	[167]
FRANK SWINNERTON	[227]
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM	[271]
STEPHEN McKENNA	[335]

WHEN WINTER COMES

TO MAIN STREET