The beginning of adventure novels for men—1901-1920
period.
A few months ago, I wrote an article for Paperback Parade about
Steward Edward White, an early 20th century writer of popular adventure, Westerns,
and nonfiction about birds and nature. He
was a conservationist, naturalist, and big game hunter, and his love for
nature, conservation, and adventure were to become very much a part of his
literary works over his long career. He enjoyed
writing about pioneers, the West, logging, gold mining, and nature. Stewart once said his books, including his
novels, were stories based upon his actual experiences.
Stewart’s first
book, The Westerner was published in
1901. He was twenty-eight years of
age. That was the beginning of his
successful literary career and he would go on to publish more than 50 books and
short stories, including Westerns, pioneer and adventure stories, children
stories, and nonfiction, over his career that lasted until his death in 1946.
Two of his
novels, The Blazed Trail (1902) and
the Riverman (1908) were about
logging in Michigan. His
book, The Forty-niners, the California Gold Rush
(1918) is an excellent book on the gold rush.
A number of his novels were made into movies and television series. I've written new Introduction to some of his
books.
As the 19th
century was coming to an end, literature centered around women's fiction,
written by women. Best-sellers were
stories of childhood, sentimentality, sugary optimism, and overcoming adversity
leading to happiness. It was the success
of Jack London's Call of the Wild
(1903) that apparently identified the need for men's novels. According to The Popular Book: A History
of American Literary Taste, by James D. Holt and published 1950 by University of California
Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Jack London's
story "was a perfect symbol of masculine yearning for the primitive."
Holt stated that
"other men wrote books largely for their own sex and came to the forefront
of popularity with fiction about the outdoor life, set mainly in the Yukon popularized by London,
or on the last frontiers of the Northwestern United States and Canada. Among the most popular authors of this school
were Stewart Edward White, Rex Beach, and James Oliver Curwood, all of whom
came to prominence just after the opening of the century and made the
best-seller lists off and on into the 1920's with new novels, or stayed in high
popularity through reprints."
I was interested
in Stewart Edward White partly because of his later nonfiction writing of the
paranormal and life after death. In
these nonfiction books he treated the adventure into the world of spirit in
very much the same way as he did all his other adventurous journeys throughout
his life. The style of writing reflected
that enthusiastic sense of adventure and exploration, even though it was a
journey into the unknown, into the self, and into the after-life. He was able to write about the adventures
beyond the veil in very much the same passionate way he wrote about nature and
the earthly frontier.
