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The Author. Joseph Conrad (Korzeniowski), born December 6, 1857, in the Ukraine, of Polish parentage, author and sometime Master in the Merchant Service of Great Britain, is the only living man who has written acknowledged masterpieces in a language other than his native one, and the story of the uncanny impulse that led him from a boyhood in inland Poland to the life of an English sea-captain and later to the writing of some of the finest of modern English novels is as strangely adventurous as any tale he has ever told. His principal works include Chance, Victory, Lord Jim, Rescue, Nostromo, Youth, Under Western Eyes.
William Allen White
He Has Humanity and Distinction
William Allen White, white-haired, slightly rotund, filled with enthusiasm and laughing a high little laugh that in a softer degree is not unlike the famous bubbling laugh of Chief Justice Taft, approached a group of young writers. "Here," said he, "is the Revolution!"
Which, being interpreted, is rather funny than otherwise; for there is no writer more thoroughly youthful, there is no writer more thoroughly human than the author of A Certain Rich Man. "I'd rather be young than right," he added; but this was only after he had postulated that "Youth is always right." And this, of course, with the well known humorous twinkle in his eye. A kindly man, a wise man, a man whose heart and abilities have always been devoted to the liberalism of America, who sits in his editorial chair at Emporia and exerts increasing influence for good in American politics and life.
He is completely of Kansas, William Allen White. He was born at Emporia. He was educated at the University of Kansas, he married a Kansas City woman and since 1895 he has been proprietor and editor of the Emporia Daily and Weekly Gazette. He was a member of the Progressive National Committee, an ardent follower of Roosevelt, high in his official councils. As did Roosevelt, he loves dogs and animals. As did Roosevelt, he understands the mind and manners, the whimsies and dialects of America.
In Contemporary American Novelists, Carl Van Doren says of him: "His shorter stories not less than his novels are racy with actualities: he has caught the dialect of his time and place with an ear that is singularly exact; he has cut the costumes of his men and villages so that hardly a wrinkle shows. In particular he understands the pathos of boyhood, seen not so much, however, through the serious eyes of boys themselves as through the eyes of reminiscent men reflecting upon young joys and griefs that will shortly be left behind and upon little pomps that can never come to anything."
He is another of these figures, all too few, who add both humanity and distinction to the American literary scene —and who add wholesomeness mixed with a sense of humor, to the American Credo. J. F.
Dial Prize
Van Wyck Brooks, an editor of The Freeman, was awarded The Dial Prize for "the best work of the year in American letters." His essays on Henry James were described as his most signal work for 1923. Two previous awards of this $2,000-prize have gone to Sherwood Anderson and T. S. Eliot.
Browsers
"Thanks, I'm Only Looking Around!"