Kenneth Lewis Roberts (December 8, 1885 – July 21, 1957) was an American writer of
historical novel
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...
s. He worked first as a journalist, becoming nationally known for his work with the ''
Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'' from 1919 to 1928, and then as a popular novelist. Born in
Kennebunk, Maine, Roberts specialized in
regionalist 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 in ''Arundel'' and ''Rabble in Arms'' are from Kennebunkport (then called
Arundel
Arundel ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Arun District of the South Downs, West Sussex, England.
The much-conserved town has a medieval castle and Roman Catholic cathedral. Arundel has a museum and comes second behind much large ...
), the main character in ''Northwest Passage'' is from
Kittery, Maine and has friends in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. At the 2020 census it had a population of 21,956. A historic seaport and popular summer tourist destination on the Piscataqua River bordering the state of Maine, Portsmou ...
, and the main character in ''Oliver Wiswell'' is from
Milton, Massachusetts.
Early life
Roberts graduated in 1908 from
Cornell University, where he wrote the lyrics for two Cornell
fight songs, including ''Fight for Cornell''. He was also a member of the
Quill and Dagger society. He was later awarded
honorary doctorates from three New England colleges:
Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire;
Colby College, in Waterville, Maine; and
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...
, in Middlebury, Vermont.
[Brennan, Elizabeth; Clarage, Elizabeth (1999)]
''Who's Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners''. p. 571
Journalism
After graduation, Roberts spent eight years working as a newspaperman for the ''
Boston Post''. In 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. army for
World War I, but he ended up as a lieutenant in the intelligence section of the
American Expeditionary Force Siberia in the
Russian Civil War instead of at the front in Europe. The contacts that he made in that role enabled him to become a European correspondent for the ''Saturday Evening Post'' after the war, where he became the first American journalist to cover the 1923
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and othe ...
,
Adolf Hitler's failed attempt to seize power. Roberts described working for the ''Posts legendary editor
George 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."
Historical fiction
Booth Tarkington, a neighbor of Roberts in
Kennebunkport, Maine, convinced him that he would never find the time to succeed as a novelist while he worked as a journalist, and Tarkington agreed to help by editing Roberts's early novels. Although Roberts continued to sell a few essays to the ''Post'', his next few years were largely dedicated to historical fiction. Ultimately, Tarkington edited all of his historical novels through ''Oliver Wiswell'' (1940), and Roberts said in his autobiography that he offered Tarkington co-writing credit on both ''
Northwest Passage'' and ''Oliver Wiswell'' in acknowledgement of Tarkington's extensive revisions to each. Both of those novels and also ''Rabble in Arms'' are dedicated to Tarkington, and Tarkington 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 in ''Arundel'' and ''Rabble in Arms'' is the American officer and eventual traitor
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold ( Brandt (1994), p. 4June 14, 1801) was an American military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defect ...
, with Roberts focusing on
Arnold's expedition to Quebec and the
Battle of Quebec in the first novel and the
Battle of Valcour Island, the
Saratoga campaign
The Saratoga campaign in 1777 was an attempt by the British high command for North America to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley during the American Revolutionary War. It ended in the surrender of the British ...
and the
Battles of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777) marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led an invasion ...
in the second. Meanwhile, the hero of ''Northwest Passage'' was Major
Robert Rogers and his company,
Rogers' Rangers, although Rogers fought for the British during the
American Revolutionary War. ''Oliver Wiswell'' focuses on a
Loyalist
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
officer during the American Revolution and covers the entire war, from famous events such as the
Siege of Boston
The siege of Boston (April 19, 1775 – March 17, 1776) was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town ...
, the
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...
, the
New York and New Jersey campaign
The New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776 and the winter months of 1777 was a series of American Revolutionary War battles for control of the Port of New York and New Jersey, Port of New York and the state of New Jersey, fought between Kingdom ...
through the
Battle of Fort Washington, and the
Franco-American alliance
The Franco-American alliance was the 1778 alliance between the Kingdom of France and the United States during the American Revolutionary War. Formalized in the 1778 Treaty of Alliance, it was a military pact in which the French provided many su ...
, to less-remembered events such as the
Convention Army, the exodus to
Kentucky County
Kentucky County (then alternately spelled Kentucke County) was formed by the Commonwealth of Virginia from the western portion (beyond the Cumberland Mountains) of Fincastle County effective December 31, 1776. The name of the county was taken ...
, the
Siege of Ninety-Six, and the resettlement of the
United Empire Loyalists, as well as providing a later look at both a dissolute Rogers and a frustrated Arnold among the British.
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
reviewed ''The Lively Lady'' in the ''
New 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."
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 of ''Northwest Passage''. He and his wife Anna translated into English the French writer
Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry's account of his journey through America in the 1790s. His last published work was ''
The Battle of Cowpens
The Battle of Cowpens was an engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781 near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina, between U.S. forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and Kingdom of Great Britain, British for ...
'', a brief history of that battle, issued after his death, in 1958.
One of Lorimer's last acts as editor of the ''Saturday Evening Post'' was to serialize ''Northwest Passage'' in 1936 and 1937. As a result of the success of the serialization, the book, when published, became the
second-best-selling novel in 1937 and fifth best for the year 1938. ''Oliver Wiswell'' also spent two years in the
top ten (1940 and 1941), and ''
Lydia Bailey'' reached the top ten in 1947. One of Roberts's closest friends and neighbors, the novelist
A. Hamilton Gibbs, later stated that he believed that Roberts probably "wrote himself out" after ''Oliver Wiswell'' and certainly had done so after ''Lydia Bailey''.
Key historical novels by Roberts and their topics include the following:
*''Arundel'' (1929), on the
American Revolution through the
Battle of Quebec
*''
The Lively Lady
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...
'' (1931), on the
War of 1812
*''
Rabble in Arms
Rabble may refer to:
* Hoi polloi, a negative term for the common people
* rabble.ca, a Canadian website
* An arrow in the arcade game '' Libble Rabble''
* Rabble of Devilkin, characters in the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' roleplaying game
* ''Rabble St ...
'' (1933), the sequel to ''Arundel'', on the American Revolution through the
Battles of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777) marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led an invasion ...
*''
Captain Caution'' (1934), on the War of 1812
*''
Northwest Passage'' (1937), on the
French and Indian War and the
Jonathan Carver expedition
*''
Oliver Wiswell'' (1940), on the American Revolution from a Loyalist's perspective, from the
Siege of Boston
The siege of Boston (April 19, 1775 – March 17, 1776) was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town ...
to the
United Empire Loyalists
*''
Lydia Bailey'' (1947), on the
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt ...
and the
First Barbary War
*''
Boon Island'' (1955), on a 1710 shipwreck on
Boon Island,
Maine
In 1957, two months before his death, Roberts received a
Pulitzer Prize Special Citation "for his historical novels which have long contributed to the creation of greater interest in our early American history."
["Special Awards and Citations"]
''The Pulitzer Prizes''. Retrieved 2013-11-02. He died, aged 71, in Kennebunkport.
Controversies
Immigration
While a reporter for the ''Saturday Evening Post'' in the early 1920s, Roberts wrote many magazine articles and a book during the period immediately following
World War I that urged strong legal restrictions on immigration from eastern and southern Europe and from Mexico, warning 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. He wrote:
:“If America doesn’t keep out the queer alien mongrelized people of Southern and Eastern Europe, her crop of citizens will eventually be dwarfed and mongrelized in turn.”
In ''Why Europe Leaves Home,'' derived from his ''Post'' articles, Roberts further referred to Jews as "human parasites" and 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.
Florida land boom
Three of Roberts's first books were written at least in part to promote the
Florida land boom of the 1920s. They were ''Sun Hunting'' (1922), ''Florida Loafing'' (1925), and ''Florida'' (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.
Dowsing
In the 1940s, Roberts became acquainted with
Henry Gross
Henry Gross (born April 1, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter best known for his association with the group Sha Na Na and for his hit song, " Shannon". Gross is considered a one-hit wonder artist; none of his other songs reached the Top 1 ...
, a retired Maine game warden and amateur water
dowser
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Ge ...
. He and Gross began a long association to use Gross's claimed dowsing abilities to find deposits of water,
petroleum,
uranium, and
diamonds, through a corporation named Water Unlimited, Inc. Roberts documented his experiences in three nonfiction books that were popular successes but received much criticism from the scientific community. He joked that he should have given ''The Seventh Sense'' the subtitle ''Or How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.''
Maine cooking
When Roberts was working on ''Trending Into Maine'', he published a chapter in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' which 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, and eventually included in the cookbook ''Good Maine Food'', which was first published in 1939. Roberts wrote the introduction to the book and a chapter on diet.
[Mosser, Marjorie (1939). ''Good Maine Food''. Doubleday, Doran.]
Books
*''Europe's Morning After'' (1921), a collection of ''Saturday Evening Post'' essays
*''Why Europe Leaves Home'' (1922), a collection of ''Saturday Evening Post'' essays on immigration
*''Sun Hunting: Adventures and Observations among the Native and Migratory Tribes of Florida'' (1922), humorous essays, Florida promotion
*''Black Magic'' (1924), a collection of ''Saturday Evening Post'' essays
*''Concentrated New England: A Sketch of Calvin Coolidge'' (1924), an informal biography
*''Florida Loafing'' (1925), humorous essays, Florida promotion
*''Florida'' (1926), Florida promotion
*''
Arundel
Arundel ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Arun District of the South Downs, West Sussex, England.
The much-conserved town has a medieval castle and Roman Catholic cathedral. Arundel has a museum and comes second behind much large ...
'' (1929), a historical novel
*''
The Lively Lady
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...
'' (1931), a historical novel (see
Dartmoor Prison)
*''
Rabble in Arms
Rabble may refer to:
* Hoi polloi, a negative term for the common people
* rabble.ca, a Canadian website
* An arrow in the arcade game '' Libble Rabble''
* Rabble of Devilkin, characters in the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' roleplaying game
* ''Rabble St ...
'' (1933), a historical novel
*''
Captain Caution'' (1934), a historical novel
*''For Authors Only, and Other Gloomy Essays'' (1935), humorous essays
*''It Must Be Your Tonsils'' (1936), humorous essays
*''
Northwest Passage'' (1937), a historical novel
*''
March to Quebec
''March To Quebec'' (published 1938, revised 1940) is a historical work by novelist Kenneth Roberts largely compiled from the actual journals of Colonel Benedict Arnold and several of his companions during the American Revolution. It depicts the ...
'' (1938), a historical compilation
*''Trending into Maine'' (1938), a travelogue
*''
Oliver Wiswell'' (1940), a historical novel
*''The Kenneth Roberts Reader'' (1945), a compilation of his works
*''
Lydia Bailey'' (1947), a historical novel
*''Moreau de St.-Mery's American Journey 1793–1798'' (1947), English translation, with Anna M. Roberts) -- history
*''I Wanted to Write'' (1949), autobiography
*''
Henry Gross and his Dowsing Rod'' (1951), on dowsing
*''
The Seventh Sense'' (1953), on dowsing
*''
Boon Island'' (1955), a historical novel
*''
Water Unlimited'' (1957), on dowsing
*''
The Battle of Cowpens
The Battle of Cowpens was an engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781 near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina, between U.S. forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and Kingdom of Great Britain, British for ...
'' (1958), a historical essay
''Arundel'', ''The Lively Lady'', ''Captain Caution'' and ''Northwest Passage'' were published as
Armed Services Editions during WWII.
See also
Marie de Sabrevois
Marie de Sabrevois is the antagonist in two of Kenneth Roberts' Arundel novels—''Arundel'' and ''Rabble in Arms'' (1929 and 1933). Conducting what we would now call psyops together with various males in the British North American establishment ...
References
;Other sources
*"Kenneth Roberts". ''Dictionary of Literary Biography'' 9:313–318 (1981).
*Bales, Jack (1989). ''Kenneth Roberts: The Man and His Works''. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press.
*Bales, Jack (1993). ''Kenneth Roberts''. Twayne's United States Authors Series. New York: Twayne Publishers.
*Harris, Janet (1976). ''A Century of American History in Fiction: Kenneth Roberts' Novels''. Gordon Press.
*Whitman, Sylvia (January 1992). "The West of a Down Easterner: Kenneth Roberts and the ''Saturday Evening Post'', 1924–1928". ''Journal of the West''.
External links
*
*
*
*
The Papers of Kenneth Robertsat Dartmouth College Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Kenneth
1885 births
1957 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American historical novelists
American male novelists
Cornell University alumni
Dowsing
Parapsychologists
People from Kennebunk, Maine
People from Kennebunkport, Maine
Pulitzer Prize winners
United States Army officers
Novelists from Maine
20th-century American male writers
American military personnel of the Russian Civil War
United States Army personnel of World War I
The Boston Post people
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters