James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds

by Hobart Donald Swiggett

Jim’s first book under the new imprint was “God’s Country and the Woman.”

It seemed at that time that James Oliver Curwood had reached his prime and the top rung of the ladder of success. Immediately after the publication of “God’s Country and the Woman,” Jim wrote “The Hunted Woman,” in 1916, and a year later the grand animal story, “The Grizzly King.” The latter was the story of Thor, one of the largest grizzlies ever known to mankind in all the wilds of British Columbia. Over 300,000 out of all the millions of Curwood fans chose “The Grizzly King” as Jim’s outstanding book on wildlife and nature. Also, in the same year Jim wrote the sequel to “Kazan,” “Baree, Son of Kazan.” This novel of wilderness dogs did not quite reach the high standard that “Kazan” did, but it was excellently written and vividly told.

All sales on his books, which now totaled fifteen, were slowly but surely increasing. It was during these years that James Oliver Curwood came to fully understand that peace, love, health and faith may be found in the presence of Nature and of God’s lowly creatures. He began to realize more than ever how small and insignificant we human beings are as compared to the mighty nature that surrounds us. In James Oliver Curwood’s last work he brought out the latter fact....

“I have often wished that some power might rise to show us how little and insignificant we are. Only then, I think, could the thorns and brambles be taken from the paths to that peace and contentment which we would find if we were not blinded by our own importance. We are the supreme egotists and monopolists of creation. Our conceit and self-importance are at times blasphemous. We are human peacocks, puffed up, inflated, hushed in the conviction that everything in the universe is made for us. We look down in supercilious lordship on all other life in creation.”

Jim Curwood came to know that a dead stump of a tree still has life and a soul. He voiced his opinion many times on that.

“If I did not believe a tree had a soul I could not believe in a God. If someone convinced me that the life in a flower or the heart in a bird were not as important in the final analysis as these same things in my own body I would no longer have faith in a hereafter.”

This thought was reflected somewhat in his following book, “The Courage of Marge O’Doone,” released in 1918.

Only two more of James Oliver Curwood’s books were to be handled by Doubleday, Page and Company. These were “The Golden Snare” and “Nomads of the North.” The latter novel of animal life Jim Curwood thoroughly enjoyed writing much more than any of his novels depicting North American wildlife. “The Golden Snare” was made into a motion picture of the silent film days with Lewis Stone playing the lead role. “Nomads of the North” was the last of the James Oliver Curwood books to appear from the presses of Doubleday, Page and Company, for in that year of 1919 a greater opportunity presented itself for the much wider distribution of Jim’s novels. So he parted from his good friends at Garden City with deep regret in his heart and he always cherished the memory of their association.

Jim Curwood left the Doubleday organization and went to the Cosmopolitan Book Corporation in 1919. The first book written by the diverse hand of James Oliver Curwood for that firm was, without a doubt, his greatest and finest work. “The River’s End” was the first of his novels that sold more than one hundred thousand copies of the first edition. Modern advertising arrangements ran up the advance sales on this book alone to one hundred thousand copies. It later sold while it was still new to the reading public, and the first edition had been exhausted to over three hundred thousand. Since the time of its publication, twenty-four years ago, “The River’s End” has sold many hundreds of thousands of copies, and many new editions have had to be printed. Sergeant Derwent Conniston and John Keith, the two principal characters of “The River’s End,” have now become immortal, as has the entire story. Many motion picture adaptations of it have been shown. The latest version was filmed and released in 1941, with Dennis Morgan in the starring role of Sergeant Conniston.

Very quickly after the release of “The River’s End” came “The Valley of Silent Men” in 1920. The advance sale on “The Valley of Silent Men” ran to better than 105,000 copies. Today more than five million people have read this famous work of fiction. It is the story of the Three River Country long before the railroads came. Jim traveled more than three thousand miles down the mighty Saskatchewan before he wrote the great novel, “The River’s End.” If he had not gone with the “Wild River Brigades” of God’s Country down those fabled streams that flow north, the millions of readers who enjoyed James Oliver Curwood’s writings, and those who still enjoy them today, would never have had the opportunity of reading the powerful novel, “The Valley of Silent Men.” Jim Curwood always lived the stories he wrote.