Kenneth Roberts

Download or read book Kenneth Roberts written by Jack Bales and published by New York : Twayne Publishers ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International. This book was released on 1993 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Readers who enjoy American history dramatized as rousing adventure fiction have always been the ideal audience for the novels of Kenneth Roberts, who, from the late 1930s to his death in 1957, was one of the most popular historical novelists in the United States. A globe-trotting journalist for the Saturday Evening Post and many other popular periodicals, Roberts channeled his enthusiasm for American history into eight novels, including Arundel (1930), Oliver Wiswell (1940), and his most famous work, Northwest Passage (1937). Acknowledging a lifetime of literary homage to all that is American - from vivid depictions of some of the grimmest moments in Revolutionary battle to a staunch defense of the merits of Maine all the way down to its cooking - the Pulitzer Committee presented Roberts with a special prize in 1957." "In this first book-length account of Roberts's life and letters, Jack Bales thoroughly reviews and analyzes the author's enormous literary output, which has for the most part been ignored by scholarly critics and historians. Following Roberts's career chronologically - and offering a lively assortment of his comments along the way - Bales identifies Roberts's storytelling ability as that which places him at the apex of the genre. The first-person narration Roberts used in most of his novels has, Bales contends, made the fictionalized events of two or three centuries ago seem more real to modern readers." "Aside from his interest in the Revolutionary War, sailors and seafaring men of the 1700s and 1800s, and wilderness explorers, Roberts had his passions, which Bales identifies as Benedict Arnold, whom Roberts believed the most famously wronged man in American history (Arundel and Rabble in Arms [1933]), and the strange "science" of water dowsing (Henry Gross and His Dowsing Rod [1951])." "Bales explores Roberts's meticulous method of researching his novels and speculates that this constant research and adherence to facts may well have stemmed from Roberts's uncertainty about his abilities as a creative artist. In this vein Bales discusses Roberts's close association with Booth Tarkington, who became somewhat of a mentor to the younger novelist, offering him stylistic advice and constructive critiques for many years." "Bales's balanced appraisal notes Roberts's weaknesses as a novelist - primarily in characterization and especially that of women - and some of his gaps in judgment (colleagues and friends have cited his too absolutist championship of both Benedict Arnold and water dowsing). Ultimately, though, Bales's portrait is as affectionate as it is well-reasoned, as much a personality profile as a comprehensive literary analysis - a work that will no doubt spark further interest in Roberts's writing and life."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved