The Literary Career of W. B. Trites

This book discusses the eight novels by American expatriate author W. B. Trites, who, although highly praised by such contemporaries H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, W. B. Maxwell, Max Beerbohm, L. P. Hartley, and Frank Harris, among others, remains curiously unknown today. His spare style, which pre-dated Hemingway’s by several decades, did not impress publishers accustomed to more expansive prose. Worse still, his prospects suffered from the forbidden social he dared to explore in a less open era, when publishers shied away from controversial topics. Richard Rex’s masterful discussion of Trites’s remarkable novels includes contemporary reviews, comments on the author’s themes, his negotiations with publishers, and biographical details heretofore unknown.