Switch to EncyclopediaClose XMAJOR, CHARLES: 1856-1913.
Charles Major was one of the Indiana novelists who dominated the field of American
best sellers from 1900 to 1905.
And dominated is the word, for there were Major's Dorothy Vernon of Haddon
Hall and A Forest Hearth (his first and greatest success, When Knighthood Was in
Flower, had been published in 1898). There were also
Thompson's Alice of Old Vincennes, McCutcheon's Graustark and
Brewster's Millions, Tarkington's Monsieur Beaucaire and The Two
Fan Revels (his Gentleman from Indiana, published in 1899,
was still going strong). Dreiser's Sister Carrie and
Jennie Gerhardt came out to shock the prudish.
David Graham Phillips was represented by The Great God
Success, The Deluge and eight less successful novels. It was a great period for
royalties paid to Hoosiers–a source of revenue then, apparently, second
only to corn and hogs to the citizens of the state of Indiana.
Charles Major was born to Stephen and
Phoebe Gaskill Major in Indianapolis on July 25, 1856. When he was thirteen
the family removed to Shelbyville,
Ind., where
Charles spent his entire life. He attended local schools, read law in his father's
office, attended the University of Michigan law school, and was
admitted to the bar in 1877. His chief interest, even
above his profession, was the Tudor period in English history, and by constant
reading he became, with no advanced academic guidance in the field, a fairly
competent authority on the period. Later he became interested in local Indiana
history, and this also furnished subject matter for some of his books.
On Sept. 27, 1885, he married Alice
Shaw of Shelbyville,
Ind. According to a
contemporary, he accepted only enough law business in the years before the success
of his first novel, When Knighthood Was in Flower, to make a respectable living;
after the remarkable success of that work he maintained an office only in order to
have a quiet place to work.
Mr. Major died on Feb. 13, 1913.
Information from Esarey–A History of Indiana and
the Dictionary of American Biography.
- When Knighthood Was in Flower; or, the Love Story of Charles
Brandon and Mary Tudor, the King's Sister, and Happening in the
Reign of King Henry VIII (pseudonym,Edwin Caskoden). Indianapulis, 1898.
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Brandon and Mary Tudor, the King's Sister, and Happening in the
Reign of King Henry VIII" by MAJOR, CHARLES: 1856-1913. in:
Close X - The Bears of Blue River. New
York, 1901.
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Close X - Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. New York, 1902.
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Close X - A Forest Hearth, a Romance of Indiana in the
Thirties. New York, 1903.
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Thirties" by MAJOR, CHARLES: 1856-1913. in:
Close X - Yolanda, Maid of Burgundy. New York, 1905.
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Close X - Uncle Tom Andy Bill. New York,
1908.
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Close X - A Gentle Knight of Old Brandenburg. New
York, 1909.
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Close X - The Little King: a Story of the Childhood of Louis XIV, King
of France. New York, 1910.
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of France" by MAJOR, CHARLES: 1856-1913. in:
Close X - The Touchstone of Fortune; Being the Memoir of Baron Clyde,
Who Lived, Thrived, and Fell in the Doleful Reign of the So-Called Merry
Monarch, Charles II. New York, 1912.
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Who Lived, Thrived, and Fell in the Doleful Reign of the So-Called Merry
Monarch, Charles II" by MAJOR, CHARLES: 1856-1913. in:
Close X - Rosalie. (Revised and published posthumously by Mrs. Major,
assisted by Test Dalton.)New York, 1925.
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assisted by Test Dalton.)" by MAJOR, CHARLES: 1856-1913. in:
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