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Kenneth Lewis Roberts (December 8, 1885 � July 21, 1957)
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PHOTO by Harold Stein, NY
One of America�s
most popular historical novelists, Kenneth Lewis Roberts was born in Kennebunk,
Maine in 1885. He is perhaps best known as
the author of Northwest
Passage (Doubleday Doran & Co., 1937), an important
historical novel set in early New England.�� He wrote many additional colorful and
historically accurate novels, as well as non-fiction books (bibliography
appears at end of this article).
�He was
educated at Cornell University
in Ithaca, New York
where for two years he was Editor in Chief of The Cornell Widow, a humor magazine.� Graduating from Cornell in 1908, he worked as
a reporter and columnist for the Boston
Post.� After serving in World War I
as a Military Intelligence Officer, he worked as a correspondent for The
Saturday Evening Post, writing on conditions in Europe,
the United States
and the Orient after the war.� He gave up
that position in 1928� when he began
writing extensively researched historical novels.� His first book Arundel, was about the American Revolution and the War of 1812, and
was published in 1930.� Over the next
several years he wrote Lively Lady, Rabble in Arms, and Captain
Caution.
At first his novels were not well received by
critics, who panned them as weak in plot structure and character development,
among other criticisms.� But his fortunes
turned around when Dartmouth College
bestowed an honorary doctorate upon him in 1934.� The President of Dartmouth lauded him as the
preeminent author of historical novels about early American life, depicting the
times with accuracy and giving new insights into the characters and
personalities of important figures of the times.� Colby
College joined in shortly
afterwards and also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
The publication of Northwest Passage (1937) propelled him into the
spotlight.� Hugely popular, it
reinvigorated sales for all of his previous novels as well.� Northwest Passage made the best seller list in
1937.� A year later Bowdoin
College and Middlebury
College gave Roberts honorary
doctorate degrees.� Before his death,
Roberts was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for his historical novels, particularly
for Northwest Passage.�
Kenneth Roberts often attributed the positive
transformation of his literary reputation to Dartmouth
College�s bold recognition of his
work.� In gratitude for this, when he
died most of his manuscripts and papers were given to Baker Library at Dartmouth.� This library holds the largest collection of
Roberts source material in the world, occupying eighty-nine linear feet of
shelf space and includes galley proofs, autographed books, research material,
personal diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, memorabilia, and more.
He was a voracious reader, who often made lots of
notes and comments in the margins of books as he read (most of these books from
his personal library are also installed in the Roberts Collection at Dartmouth�s
Baker Library).�
Roberts was a man of wide ranging interests and
passions.� In addition to historical
novels, he wrote non-fiction on subjects ranging from immigration to black
magic.� Later in his life he became
deeply interested in �dousing� or �water-witching� and wrote several books on
the subject, much to the chagrin of some of his friends and associates, who
were not converts to the practice of using a divining rod to locate water.� He formed a corporation called Water Unlimited with Henry Gross, a game
warden who was gifted at water dousing. He also wrote a book by the same
name.� Gross and Roberts traveled the
world advocating the practice and (often successfully) helping people locate
water.� Roberts endured quite a bit of
mockery and ridicule for this practice at the time.
Books by Kenneth Roberts are still in great demand
today, and fine first editions of many of his books command high prices.� More importantly, his stories inspired many
readers to become avidly interested in American History.��
Kenneth Roberts died on July 21, 1957 and is buried in Arlington
Cemetery.
For more
information on Kenneth Roberts� life and books, visit these links:
www.izaak.unh.edu/specoll/mancoll/roberts.htm
(University of New
Hampshire)
http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ml25.html#N10220 (Dartmouth
College)
http://www.waterborolibrary.org/maineaut/r.htm#roberts
(Waterboro Public Library, Waterboro, Maine)
�
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Europe's Morning
After (1921)
Why Europe
Leaves Home: A True Account of the Reasons Which Cause Central Europeans to
Overrun America
(1922)
Sun Hunting: Adventures and observations among the
native and migratory tribes of Florida, including the stoical time-killers of
Palm Beach, the gentle and gregarious tin-canners of the remote interior, and
the vivacious and semi-violent peoples of Miami (1922)
The Collector's Whatnot: A Compendium, Manual, and
Syllabus of Information and Advice on All Subjects Appertaining to the
Collection of Antiques, Both Ancient and Not So Ancient (1923)� authored by Kenneth Roberts and� Booth Tarkington using the pen names of
Cornelius O. Van Loot,� Milton Kilgallen,
and Murgatroyd Elphinstone.
Black Magic: An account of its beneficial use in Italy,
of its perversion in Bavaria,
and of certain tendencies which might necessitate its study in America
(1924)
Concentrated New England:
A sketch of Calvin Coolidge (1924)
Florida
Loafing: An investigation into the peculiar state of affairs which leads
residents of 47 states to encourage Spanish architecture in the 48th
(1925)
Florida
(1926)
Antiquamania: The collected papers of Professor Milton
Kilgallen, F.R.S., of Ugsworth
College,
elucidating the difficulties in the path of the antique dealer and collector,
and presenting various methods of meeting and overcoming them / (1928);
written by Roberts and illustrated by Booth Tarkington.
Arundel:
A Chronicle of the Province of Maine and of the Secret Expedition Against Quebec (1930), also published as Arundel, Being the Recollections
of Steven Nason of Arundel, in the Province
of Maine,
Attached to the Secret Expedition Led by Colonel Benedict Arnold Against Quebec
Lively
Lady: A Chronicle of Arundel, of Privateering, and of the Circular Prison on Dartmoor (1931)
Rabble
in Arms: A Chronicle of Arundel and the Burgoyne Invasion (1933)
Captain
Caution: A Chronicle of Arundel (1934)
For Authors Only, and Other Gloomy Essays
(1935)
Northwest Passage (1937)
It Must be Your Tonsils (1936, with pictures by
Paul Galdone)
March to Quebec:
Journals of the Members of Arnold's
expedition (1938)
Trending
into Maine
(1938), essays on Maine legends,
history, seafaring, food; illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
Oliver
Wiswell (1940)
The
Kenneth Roberts Reader (1945)
Lydia Bailey (1947)
Don't Say That About Maine!
(1948)
I Wanted to Write (1949)
Henry
Goss and His Dowsing Rod (1951); Henry Goss was a federal game
warden in Maine whose gift of
water dousing led to fresh water in Bermuda
The Seventh Sense (1953)
Boon Island
(1955/1996), about actual shipwreck in early Maine
history
Water Unlimited (1957)
The Battle of Cowpens: The Great Morale Builder
(1957)
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