TUMBLING INTO FAME.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7912, 28 July 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

TUMBLING INTO FAME.

GREAT REPUTATIONS MADE BY ACCIDENT. There is a popular theory that I iterary fame is as elusive as ui wil-o’-the-wisp, and in order to reach the front rank of succcs.dul writers it l> essential to have a good d<eal of “grounding,” and only after years of strenuous work one is able to bring out a book which will tickle tlie fancy of a generous public. As a matter of fact, however, there are few professions, into which luck inters more strongly tlnn in writing, and, judging from the confessions of famous men and women novelists, their success frequent!' seems to have been tlie result of happy ch'amee. Tho late Marion Crawford, who •charmed tho world with his delightful stories, owed his success to a chance remark of an unde. Returning from India, downhearted and discouraged over his failure to e-tnblish a newspaper in Calcutta, lib uncle suggested that ho might write his adventures in the Fast. “ Mr. Isaacs” was the result, aml from that d ly Crawford never looked back.. Tho first story which Mr. Horace Annesley Vqeliell wrote was the outcome of a revere cold. He went down to hunt in Dor sets lure, and tile first evening happened to tell a personal experience in a mining ( imp in Colorado. “Next day.” refills Mr. Yacliell, “I Mas down with an appalling cold, and quite unable to get on a horse, let alone ride him. My host, as lie rode oil, said, ‘Wily don’t .on write tint story you told us last night, and send it to some magazine ?’ I set to work at once, and th> yarn wa- sent to Sir Douglas Straight, at that time editor of the ‘Whitehall Review. To my in.nmm- ' surprise and pleasure, the story was accepted, paid for, and printed. .jack London, whose untimely dkfcith occurred a few men tbs ago, before he reached the top of the ladder as America's most popular story v.liter, hid moved in many spheres, ranging from that of a tramp to •;* captain in the United States navy. Jt i.s a curious fact that Elinor Cjlyn wrote her first success! ul book, "Visits of Elizabeth,” to di-t.aet her thought-, during an illness. She \\ti,s so crippled with rheumatism that she wt'.ls quite unable to move from her bed. One day she-. w«<s reading her old diaries, when the bright idea struck her that she might found a story on her own lile. Hie not result was one of the most obarrninn- books that have ever come lie!ore the public. Tre world of art mav possibly have !e<Jt a modem Michel Angelo in Robert Chambers. The novel-reading world, however* gained an interesting storyteller when he gave up his art dudies after several veins’ of successful work in the T.itin Quarter in Paris. It will come nsurprise to the many Fmdish readers ot’ "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabling© Patch” to learn that its authoress was formerly a young, penm--1,. . teacher in one cf the public schools i;. Louisville. Kentucky. She used to spend her evenings writing short storiuec.cs' ful. nr 1 in desper it ion she wrote p. lon-- si;), ' 1 . 1 ". 1 "i'd - iid A delightful old M" nain el “Mrs. Wigy- ” wlm was destined to bring the author both fame and fortune.