James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds

by Hobart Donald Swiggett

This remark Jim Curwood made in his own modest manner.

Through the years beginning with 1902 up to and including 1905 the rapidly rising young author published quite a number of articles and short stories, among which were: “Pills,” which ran in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly; another Munsey story, and Jim’s first juvenile serial was published in The American Boy. In 1905 Jim vacationed in the wilds, whereby he obtained the basis for a number of articles which appeared in Outing, Outlook, Woman’s Home Companion, Cosmopolitan, and others. It was also during this hectic period that Jim edited a banker’s publication which was called “Dollars and Sense.”

With the appearance of these numerous articles and fiction works, Hewitt Hanson Howland, editor of a magazine published by Bobbs-Merrill in Indianapolis, began to take notice of the rising writer’s works and asked him to do a series of articles on the Great Lakes for his magazine. Jim also was contributing nature sketches to Leslie’s Weekly. Of this group he published more than one hundred articles.

Having now been on the staff of special writers of the News-Tribune for three years, Jim Curwood was really beginning to feel like a veteran “news-hawk.” It was in his third year as a special writer that Jim’s wife presented him with his second daughter, who was named Viola. Now he was the father of two fine girls. Jim was gloriously happy, of that there was little doubt, but for some apparently unknown reason, his wife was not. Perhaps it was because he had excluded her from his real life.

With the birth of her second child Mrs. Curwood began to seem rather discontented and nervous. In fact she seemed dissatisfied with her life with Jim Curwood altogether. Why, Jim was never able fully to find out, except for the fact that the life of a writer was too confining for her. Had she stopped to realize that her husband was on his way to the top of the ladder and would eventually reach that goal, the marriage might have lasted.

Following his successful contacts with Munsey’s and other famous magazines, Jim was made one of the “bigshots” of the Detroit paper and served in that capacity until 1907. He had been writing continuously for fourteen years, sticking everlastingly to his chosen profession. He deserved success much more than the average writers of the time.

As fast as the so-called “big breaks” would come to Jim Curwood, he would turn out better articles and stories than ever before. With each successive sale it seemed certain that his writing actually was of a high order. Evidently scores of various publications thought as much, for Jim was receiving requests for his stories from papers and magazines throughout the United States and Canada. His work was in great demand at this time as it so continued to be for many years to pass.

In 1906 Jim Curwood began writing two novels. This was his very first attempt at book length work and though somewhat hesitant at first, Jim fought his way through valiantly. The first was entitled “The Wolf Hunters,” a tale of the Hudson Bay country, and the second one was “The Courage of Captain Plum.” The latter was an adventurous yarn of the Mormon settlements on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan.

Late in 1907, the year of Jim’s 29th birthday, he completed both “The Wolf Hunters” and “The Courage of Captain Plum,” and sent them both off to the Bobbs-Merrill Company in Indianapolis. Many anxious weeks passed during which time Jim waited with prayerful hopes as he continued his newspaper work. Then one day a letter came with the wonderful news that both his manuscripts had been accepted for publication, and that “The Courage of Captain Plum” was so well liked that he was being offered a contract for one book yearly for the next five years. Jim’s books were to sell for one dollar and a half of which he was to receive a ten per cent royalty. To say that the young man was jubilant and happy would be putting it mildly. Jim very nearly tore up the city room of the Detroit News-Tribune when he had read the letter from the Indianapolis publishers. Both books were published in 1908.

Now more than ever Jim Curwood realized how swell Pat Baker, George Snow and Annesley Burrowes, as well as the entire staff of the paper, had been to him in affording him the great opportunities that he had had. What they did for him were enshrined as memories deep within his tender, loving heart. For they had provided the chance for Jim to get his name before the reading public and thus enabled his works to be read.