The bears of Blue River

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The bears of Blue River. Major, Charles, 1856–1913

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Title:

The bears of Blue River

Author:

Major, Charles, 1856-1913

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MAJOR, 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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The Bears of Blue River. New York, 1901.
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Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. New York, 1902.
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A Forest Hearth, a Romance of Indiana in the Thirties. New York, 1903.
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Yolanda, Maid of Burgundy. New York, 1905.
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Uncle Tom Andy Bill. New York, 1908.
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A Gentle Knight of Old Brandenburg. New York, 1909.
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The Little King: a Story of the Childhood of Louis XIV, King of France. New York, 1910.
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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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Rosalie. (Revised and published posthumously by Mrs. Major, assisted by Test Dalton.)New York, 1925.
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Publication Year:

1901

Source:

New York: Doubleday & McClure co, 1901. viii, 277 p. front., illus., plates. 20.5 cm.

Bookmark:

https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/inauthors/VAC1118

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THE BEARS OF BLUE RIVER

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