Arthur Stringer (writer)

Arthur Stringer
Born February 26, 1874
Chatham, Ontario, Canada
Died September 13, 1950 (aged 76)
Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation Screenwriter, novelist
Language English
Nationality Canadian
Alma mater University of Toronto
Notable works Prairie Wife, Prairie Mother, Prairie Child, Open Water
Spouse Jobyna Howland; Margaret Arbuthnott
Children Arthur, Hugh, Robert

Arthur Stringer (February 26, 1874 – September 13, 1950) was a Canadian novelist, screenwriter, and poet who later moved to the United States.

He published 45 works of fiction and 15 other books, in addition to writing numerous filmscripts and articles.[1]

“ Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow. –Arthur Stringer, The Silver Poppy ”

Life

Stringer was born in Chatham, Ontario,[1] the son of Sarah Mary Delmage and Hugh Stringer.[2] "He was a high spirited boy who spent his childhood days fishing, swimming, raiding orchards and manning a pirate ship."[3] In 1884 the family moved to London, Ontario, where Charles attended London Collegiate Institute.[1] At the Institute he founded and edited a school magazine called Chips.[3] He then attended University College, University of Toronto from 1892 to 1894 and later studied at Oxford University.[4] His first book of poetry, Watchers of Twilight and Other Poems, was published in 1894.[3]

In 1895 he worked for the Montreal Herald. At this time he was also publishing in Saturday Night and the Canadian Magazine. In 1898 he got a job with the American Press Association,[3] moved to New York City, and was soon publishing in The Atlantic and Harper's.[1] His first poem in Harper's, "Remorse", appeared in February 1899.[5] His first novel, The Silver Poppy, came out in 1903.[1] In the same year he bought a farm on the shore of Lake Erie. and married actress Jobyna Howland, known as the original Gibson girl.[6] They divorced in 1914, and Stringer married his cousin, Margaret Arbuthnott.[1] They had three sons: Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer (John), Hugh Arbuthnott Stringer (Barney), and Robert Arthur Stringer.[2]

Stringer was popular in his day for his crime fiction and his wilderness adventures, but he wrote in many genres, from social realism (his "Prairie" trilogy, 1915–1921) to psychological fiction (The Wine of Life (1921).[7] He even wrote early science fiction novels, The Story Without a Name (1924) with Russell Holman, and The Woman Who Couldn't Die (1929).[8]

Much of his writing was for films. Film scripts on which he worked include The Perils Of Pauline (1914), The Hand Of Peril (1916), The House Of Intrigue (1919), Unseeing Eyes (1923), Empty Hands (1924), The Canadian (1926), The Purchase Price (1932), The Lady Fights Back (1937), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) and The Iron Claw (1941).[9]

Last years

In 1921, the Stringers moved to Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, where Arthur Stringer continued to write, and where he died in 1950, aged 76.[1]

Writing

Fiction

Stringer was popular in his day for his crime fiction and his wilderness adventures, both of which rely to a large degree on formula; "generally he worked within the conventions of sentimental romance popular around the turn of the century."[6] Modern critics have not been kind to his fiction. For example, Douglas Fetherling wrote of him in the Canadian Encyclopedia:

Stringer was not in any recognizable stream of Canadian writing but rather was a prolific American hack-fiction writer ... The fact that he lived most of his life in the U.S., however, did not prevent him from frequently inventing Canadian characters and sometimes ... setting them in the Far North, a region he misunderstood lavishly, thereby contributing to foreign stereotyping of Canada.[10]

Against that one has to set Stringer's prairie trilogy – Prairie Wife (1915), Prairie Mother (1920), and Prairie Child (1921) – which has been called "an enduring contribution to Canadian literature."[7] The trilogy uses a diary form to tell the tale of its narrator, "a New England socialite married to a dour Scots-Canadian wheat farmer," and "develops gradually from the optimism typical of pioneering romances, through disillusionment as her marriage deteriorates, to mature resolve as she begins an independent life on the Prairies."[6]

Poetry

The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature described Stringer's poetry as "undistinguished verse."[7] However, it was also said that in his poetry "there is maintained a standard of beauty, depth of feeling, and technical power, which in Canada have had all too little recognition."[11] At its time his blank verse drama Sappho in Leucadia was called "an imaginative, passionate, artistic work of surpassing quality".[11]

Stringer's chief claim to poetic fame today rests on his 1914 book, Open Water, the first book by a Canadian poet to use free verse – and in particular on his preface to that book, in which he "describes the modernist movement as a natural evolution."[4] Louis Dudek and Michael Gnarowski, who reprinted the Open Water preface in their anthology The Making of Modern Poetry In Canada, remarked on it:

This book must be seen as a turning point in Canadian writing if only for the importance of the ideas advanced by Stringer in his preface. In a carefully presented, extremely well-informed account of traditional verse-making, Stringer pleaded the cause of free verse and created what must now be recognized as an early document of the struggle to free Canadian poetry from the trammels of end-rhyme, and to liberalize its methods and its substance.[12]

"Stringer's arguments become even more striking from the point of view of literary history", Dudek and Gnarowski continued, "if we recall ... that the famous notes of F.S. Flint and the strictures of Ezra Pound on imagisme and free verse had appeared less than a year before this, in the March 1913 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (Chicago).[12]

Legacy

Stringer was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Western Ontario in 1946.[3]

Stringer is commemorated by Arthur Stringer Public School in London, Ontario, which opened in 1969.[4]

The house in which Stringer lived as a boy in London, Ontario has been preserved as a historic site, Arthur Stringer House.[1]

Publications

Fiction

Information on early fiction from American fiction, 1901-1925.[14]

Non-fiction

Poetry

Plays

Movies

The following 22 movies were based on fiction by Arthur Stringer:[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 "Arthur Stringer House", London Public Library, Web, May 7, 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 IMDb profile
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 ""New York Nocturnes by Arthur Stringer", Ronald P. Frye & Co., May 8, 2011.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Roger Moran, "Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer", Canadian Encyclopedia, Dominion Institute, May 8, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Profile at Harpers.org, May 8, 2011.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Dick Harrison, Arthur Stringer Biography", Encyclopedia of Literature, 8753, JRank.org, May 8, 2011
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Arthur Stringer", Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Answers.com, May 8, 2011
  8. ↑ "Arthur Stringer Summary Bibliography, International Science Fiction Database, ISFDB.com, May 8, 2011.
  9. ↑ "Arthur Stringer," FindAGrave.com, May 8, 2011.
  10. ↑ D. Fetherling, "Stringer, Arthur John Arbuthnott", Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 John W. Garvin, "Arthur Stringer," Canadian Poets (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1916), p. 313, UPenn.edu, May 8, 2011.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Ken Norris, "The Beginnings of Canadian Modernism," Canadian Poetry: Studies/Documents/Reviews, No. 11 (Fall/Winter, 1982), Canadian Poetry, UWO.ca, March 25, 2011
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 13.9 13.10 13.11 13.12 13.13 13.14 13.15 13.16 13.17 13.18 13.19 13.20 13.21 13.22 13.23 13.24 13.25 13.26 13.27 13.28 13.29 Author Search: Arthur Stringer, Open Library, Web, May 7, 2011.
  14. ↑ Geoffrey Dayton-Smith, American Fiction, 1901-1925. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U P, 1997, 646-647, Google Books, Web, May 8, 2011.

External links