1911 THE BROAD HIGHWAY by Jeffrey Farnol: This spicy epic
of love lost and love regained in early 19th Century England was said to combine
"the spiritual type of swashbuckler adventure with the idyllic tale of the
open road."
1912 THE HARVESTER by Gene Stratton Porter:
In her tale of life in the swamps of Indiana, the author created a hero
pure of mind and heart "in the hope that a likeness will be seen to Henry
David Thoreau."
1913 THE INSIDE OF THE CUP by Winston
Churchill: St. Louis born Mr. Churchill related the story of a priest's struggle
to comprehend the complex problems of modern life.
1914
THE EYES OF THE WORLD by Harold Bell Wright: Supposedly a righteous protest
against "patrons of the arts" and artists who prostitute their talents,
this work was labeled "pornographic" by the Boston Transcript."
1915
THE TURMOIL by Booth Tarkington: The spokesman for adolescent America turned
from light-hearted fare to produce a deeply-felt indictment of a ruthless businessman
and "any city, every city, that makes Bigness its god."
1916
SEVENTEEN by Booth Tarkington: Back in the world of awkward adolescence, Tarkington
told how it was "to be a boy, and seventeen, and in love, and to have a small
sister who eats bread spread with apple sauce."
1917
MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH by H.G. Wells: After losing a son in the war,
Mr. Britling was compelled "to look beyond personal love, beyond the borders
of nationalism to find a meaning which would justify the sacrifice."
1918
THE U.P. TRAIL by Zane Grey: The joining of East and West by rail was told
on a "big canvas, a canvas lurid, volcanic, burnt with human passions at
their best and their basest and human energies strained to their tensest."
1919
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE by V. Blasco-Ibanez: As war, conquest,
famine and death laid waste the earth, wealthy ne'er-do-well Julio Desnoyers tangoed
his way through life in the bistros of Paris.
1920
THE MAN OF THE FOREST by Zane Grey: The theme this time was - can a poor young
man accustomed to the solitude of the mountains find happiness as the protector
of a young girl of property newly arrived from the east?
