Preface 5 William Dean Howells 11 Bret Harte 27 Mark Twain 43 "Lew" Wallace 59 George W. Cable 75 Henry James 91 Francis Richard Stockton 107 Joel Chandler Harris 123 S. Weir Mitchell 139 Robert Grant 155 F. Marion Crawford 169 James Lane Allen 185 Thomas Nelson Page 201 Richard Harding Davis 215 John Kendrick Bangs 231 Hamlin Garland 247 Paul Leicester Ford 263 Robert Neilson Stephens 279 Charles D. G. Roberts 299 Winston Churchill 317 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _Page_ William Dean Howells _Frontispiece_ Bret Harte 27 George W. Cable 75 Francis Richard Stockton 107 S. Weir Mitchell 139 Robert Grant 155 F. Marion Crawford 169 James Lane Allen 185 Thomas Nelson Page 201 Richard Harding Davis 215 John Kendrick Bangs 231 Hamlin Garland 247 Robert Neilson Stephens 279 Charles G. D. Roberts 299 Winston Churchill 317 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS Mr. Howells has reached that point of life and success where he can afford to sit down and look back. But he is not that sort of man. He will probably continue to work and to look forward until, in the words of Hamlet, he shuffles off this mortal coil. William Dean Howells was born in Martin's Ferry, Belmont County, Ohio, March 1, 1837. He has therefore reached the ripe age of sixty-four. When he was three years old his father moved from Martin's Ferry to Hamilton and bought _The Intelligencer_, a weekly paper. Nine years afterward he sold _The Intelligencer_ and moved to Dayton, becoming proprietor of the _Dayton Transcript_. This paper had been a semi-weekly, but Mr. Howells changed it to a daily; and his son William went to work for him. It was William's business to rise at four in the morning and sell the paper about town. But the _Transcript_ proved a failure, so the Howells family left Dayton and moved into the country on the banks of the Miami, where for a year a log-cabin was their home.