In the month of September, 1898, there appeared in America a novel with the attractive title, _Bob, Son of Battle_. Unheralded by author's fame or by the blare of advertisement, it was at first unnoticed; but in about a twelvemonth everybody was talking about it. It became one of the "best sellers"; unlike its companions, it has not vanished with the snows of yesteryear. At this moment it is being read and reread all over the United States. I do not believe there is a single large town in our country where the book is unknown, or where a reference to it fails to bring to the faces of intelligent people that glow of reminiscent delight aroused by the memory of happy hours passed in the world of imagination. It seemed so immensely superior to the ordinary run of new novels, that we gazed with pardonable curiosity at the unfamiliar signature on the title-page. Who was this writer who knew so much of the nature of dogs and men? Where had he found that extraordinarily vivid style, and what experiences had he passed through that gave him his subtle insight into character? But all that we could then discover was that Alfred Ollivant was an Englishman, and that _Bob_ was his first novel. We decided that he must have lived long, observed all kinds of dogs, and a large variety of men, women, and children; and that for some reason best known to himself he had chosen to print nothing until he had descended into the vale of years. For only the other day we were not surprised to find that _Joseph Vance_ was the winter fruit of a man nearly seventy; that book at any rate was the expression of a man who had had life, and had it abundantly. Our astonishment was keen indeed when we learned that the author of _Bob_ was a boy just out of his teens, who had written his wonderful book in horizontal pain and weakness. He had entered the army, receiving his commission as a cavalry officer in 1893, at the age of nineteen; a few weeks after this event, a fall from his horse injured his spine, previously affected by some mysterious malady; this accident abruptly checked his chosen military career, and made him a man of letters. Literature owes a great deal to enforced idleness, whether the writer be sick or in prison. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and we perceived once more that genius does not always accompany good health, or maturity, or ambition; it seems to select with absolute caprice the individuals through whom it speaks. And so this first-born child of the brain was delivered, like human infants, on a bed of suffering; being, to complete the analogy, none the less healthy on that account. The book was begun in 1894, when the author was twenty years old; during intervals of physical capacity in 1895 and 1896, it was continued, and was submitted to the publishers in 1897.