_James Lane Allen._--James Lane Allen has done for Kentucky what Mr. Page has done for Old Virginia and Miss Murfree for the Tennessee mountaineers. A native of Kentucky (born in 1849), he graduated from Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, and taught in schools and colleges for some years. Since 1884, however, he has devoted himself to literary work. Besides writing much for magazines he has published “Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales and Romances” (1891), “The Blue Grass Region, and Other Sketches” (1892), “John Gray” (1893), rewritten and enlarged into “The Choir Invisible” (1897), “A Kentucky Cardinal” (1894) and its sequel “Aftermath” (1895), “Summer in Arcady” (1896), “The Reign of Law” (1900), published in England as “The Increasing Purpose,” and “The Mettle of the Pasture” (1903). A tendency toward didacticism and a lack of spontaneity mar the latest works of Mr. Allen; he is at his best in his earlier works, in which he revels in the beauty of the Blue Grass region and writes in the spirit of a disciple of Thoreau and Audubon. The romanticist in him was gradually transformed into the objective realist. Yet in all his work there are elements of strength and poetic beauty. By a curious coincidence another Kentucky James Lane Allen (born in 1848) a graduate of Bethany College, in which the first Mr. Allen taught, and now a Chicago lawyer, has also written numerous magazine sketches and stories. _Hamlin Garland._--The grim, dull life of the hard-worked farmer in the Middle West has been effectively recorded by Hamlin Garland. A native of La Crosse, Wisconsin (born in 1860), Mr. Garland saw at close range the life he was to describe, in Iowa, Illinois, and Dakota. His first book was a collection of six realistic stories, “Main-Travelled Roads” (1891), which gave him a reputation, and he has continued to write in similar vein, publishing “Prairie Folks” (1892), “A Little Norsk, or Ol’ Pap’s Flaxen” (1892), “A Spoil of Office” (1892), “Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly” (1895), his best novel, “The Eagle’s Heart” (1900), “Her Mountain Lover” (1901), and “Money Magic” (1907). Mr. Garland has for the most part wisely obeyed his own dictum, to write only of what one knows; and his later work shows a notable increase in vigour and grasp of the story-teller’s art. _Henry Blake Fuller._--Henry B. Fuller (born in Chicago, 1857) was intended for a mercantile career, but preferred literature. “The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani” (1890), first published anonymously, was praised by Lowell and Norton. In 1892 appeared “The Chatelaine of La Trinité.” In “The Cliff-Dwellers” (1893), he turned from the romantic to a sure realism in a story of Chicago life. “With the Procession” followed in 1895, being in similar vein. These stories show skill in individualisation, intense earnestness, facility, and ability to make an old theme interesting. “His picture,” says Mr. Whibley, “is never overcharged; his draughtsmanship is always sincere.”