Kenneth Roberts | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Kenneth Lewis Roberts December 8, 1885 Kennebunk, Maine, US |
| Died | July 21, 1957(1957-07-21) (aged 71) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Period | 1929–1957 |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Notable works | Northwest Passage |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize Special Citation |
| Spouse | Anna |
Kenneth Lewis Roberts (December 8, 1885 – July 21, 1957) was an American writer ofhistorical novels. He worked first as a journalist, becoming nationally known for his work with theSaturday Evening Post from 1919 to 1928, and then as a popular novelist. Born inKennebunk, Maine, Roberts specialized inregionalist historical fiction, often writing about his native state and its terrain and also about other upper New England states and scenes. For example, the main characters inArundel andRabble in Arms are from Kennebunkport (then calledArundel), the main character inNorthwest Passage is fromKittery, Maine and has friends inPortsmouth, New Hampshire, and the main character inOliver Wiswell is fromMilton, Massachusetts.
Roberts graduated in 1908 fromCornell University, where he wrote the lyrics for two Cornellfight songs, includingFight for Cornell.[1] He was also a member of theQuill and Dagger society. He was later awardedhonorary doctorates from three New England colleges:Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire;Colby College, in Waterville, Maine; andMiddlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont.[2]
After graduation, Roberts spent eight years working as a newspaperman for theBoston Post. In 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. army forWorld War I. He was assigned to intelligence and promoted to a lieutenant, serving with that section in theAmerican Expeditionary Force Siberia during theRussian Civil War, rather than at the European front.
The contacts that he made in that role enabled him to become a European correspondent for theSaturday Evening Post after the war. He was the first American journalist to cover the 1923Beer Hall Putsch,Adolf Hitler's failed attempt to seize power. Roberts described working for thePost's legendary editorGeorge Horace Lorimer as follows: "I told him my ideas, which he instantly rejected or accepted ... The price to be paid for a story was never discussed, and Lorimer was always generous."[3]
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WriterBooth Tarkington, a neighbor of Roberts inKennebunkport, Maine, convinced him that he would never find the time to succeed as a novelist while working as a journalist. Tarkington agreed to help by editing Roberts's early novels. Although Roberts continued to sell a few essays to thePost, his next few years were largely dedicated to historical fiction.
Ultimately, Tarkington edited all of Roberts's novels throughOliver Wiswell (1940). Roberts said in his autobiography that he offered Tarkington co-writing credit on bothNorthwest Passage andOliver Wiswell in acknowledgement of Tarkington's extensive revisions to each. He also dedicated both those novels andRabble in Arms to Tarkington. The author continued to assist Roberts until his death in 1946.
Roberts's historical fiction often focused on rehabilitating unpopular persons and causes in American history. A key character inArundel andRabble in Arms is the American officer and eventual traitorBenedict Arnold, with Roberts focusing onArnold's expedition to Quebec and theBattle of Quebec in the first novel and theBattle of Valcour Island, theSaratoga campaign and theBattles of Saratoga in the second. Meanwhile, the hero ofNorthwest Passage was MajorRobert Rogers and his company,Rogers' Rangers, although Rogers fought for the British during theAmerican Revolutionary War.Oliver Wiswell focuses on aLoyalist officer during the American Revolution and covers the entire war, from famous events such as theSiege of Boston, theBattle of Bunker Hill, theNew York and New Jersey campaign through theBattle of Fort Washington, and theFranco-American alliance, to less-remembered events such as theConvention Army, the exodus toKentucky County, theSiege of Ninety-Six, and the resettlement of theUnited Empire Loyalists, as well as providing a later look at both a dissolute Rogers and a frustrated Arnold among the British.
George Orwell reviewedThe Lively Lady in theNew English Weekly in 1936, describing it as "blood-and-thundery stuff ... chiefly interesting as showing that the old-fashioned nineteenth-century type of American bumptiousness ... is still going strong."[4]
As a result of his research into the Arnold expedition, Roberts published a work of nonfiction,March to Quebec: Journals of the Members of Arnold's Expedition, a compilation of journals and letters written by participants in the march. During Roberts's research into Major Rogers, his researcher uncovered transcripts of both of Rogers's courts-martial (once as the accuser and once as the accused), which had been thought lost for over a century, and these were published in the second volume of a special two-volume edition ofNorthwest Passage. He and his wife Anna translated into English the French writerMédéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry's account of his journey through America in the 1790s. His last published work wasThe Battle of Cowpens, a brief history of that battle, issued after his death, in 1958.
One of Lorimer's last acts as editor of theSaturday Evening Post was to serializeNorthwest Passage in 1936 and 1937. As a result of the success of the serialization, the book, when published, became thesecond-best-selling novel in 1937 and fifth best for the year 1938.Oliver Wiswell also spent two years in thetop ten (1940 and 1941), andLydia Bailey reached the top ten in 1947. One of Roberts's closest friends and neighbors, the novelistA. Hamilton Gibbs, later stated that he believed that Roberts probably "wrote himself out" afterOliver Wiswell and certainly had done so afterLydia Bailey.[5]
Key historical novels by Roberts and their topics include the following:
In 1957, two months before his death, Roberts received aPulitzer Prize Special Citation "for his historical novels which have long contributed to the creation of greater interest in our early American history."[2][6] He died, aged 71, in Kennebunkport.
While a reporter for theSaturday Evening Post in the early 1920s, Roberts wrote many magazine articles and a book during the period immediately followingWorld War I that urged strong legal restrictions on immigration from eastern and southern Europe and from Mexico. He warned of the dangers of immigration from places other than northwestern Europe. He became a leading voice for stricter immigration laws and testified before a congressional committee on the subject.[7]
He wrote:
InWhy Europe Leaves Home, derived from hisPost articles, Roberts referred to Jews as "human parasites".[9] He was separately quoted warning against further "Semitic" immigration to America, which he feared would turn the U.S. population into a "worthless and futile" hybrid race.[10]
Three of Roberts's first books were written at least in part to promote theFlorida land boom of the 1920s. They wereSun Hunting (1922),Florida Loafing (1925), andFlorida (1926). Many people lost a lot of money in the bust that followed. These books were usually omitted from the lists of “other books by this author” published in the front pages of his later works.
In the 1940s, Roberts became acquainted withHenry Gross, a retired Maine game warden and amateur waterdowser. He and Gross began a long association to use Gross's claimed dowsing abilities to find deposits of water,petroleum,uranium, anddiamonds, through a corporation named Water Unlimited, Inc. Roberts documented his experiences in three nonfiction books that were popular successes but were strongly criticized by the scientific community. He joked that he should have givenThe Seventh Sense the subtitleOr How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.[5]
When Roberts was working onTrending Into Maine, he published a chapter in theSaturday Evening Post that was dedicated to dishes he remembered having as a boy growing up in Maine. Several months after the chapter was published, he began to receive mail from residents and ex-residents who were troubled that he neglected to mention many of the dishes they knew and loved from the Pine Tree State. Roberts was distressed by the letters but decided to keep them, and they were eventually compiled by his secretary, Marjorie Mosser. She eventually included many of the letters and provide recipes in the cookbookGood Maine Food, which was first published in 1939. Roberts wrote the introduction to the book and a chapter on diet.[11]
Arundel,The Lively Lady,Captain Caution andNorthwest Passage were published asArmed Services Editions during WWII.
