Born in a Bookshop: Chapter from the Chicago Renascence

by Vincent Starrett

Vincent Starrett, the well-known author and book columnist on the Chicago Tribune, recounts his own rich experiences in what can best be described as the autobiography of a bookman. As such it is the story of a man who has lived by books. Although an novelist and story writer by trade, he writes about the books of others with enthusiasm and authority, and about the great and near-great among authors, booksellers, collectors, and, above all, the classic array of newspapermen with whom he has shared life.

The book offers an intimate picture of the Chicago literary renascence, seen from the inside and described with insight and humor by one of its survivors. It is doubtful that we shall get a closer view of the creative zest - and the pleasures - of Starrett's contemporary craftsmen, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Burton Rascoe, Harry Hansen, Christopher Morley, and Alexander Woolcott, to name a few. The portraits he draws of Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, Harriet Monroe, Edgar Lee Masters, and Arthur Machen are vivid and unforgettable.

• Publish Date: 1965
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: University of Oklahoma Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 326
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Not the book I expected.  I bought it because it was advertised to be a book about a bookman - and it is, but it's a biography of Starrett's life, nota memoir of his book buying and selling.  Almost nothing at all about his bookman role, actually.  What he talks about most are his days as a journalist and author, name dropping his way from first to last.  That's not a criticism, but I knew almost none of the names, which makes the whole exercise tedious rather than interesting.

Mostly, this book was both out of my league and not what I was looking for, but that's my fault, not the author's.