The Man of Letters as a Man of Business

A lively assemblage of essays and sketches, this volume captures a writer’s restless curiosity about the overlap of literature and everyday experience. Written between the early 1890s and the turn of the century for such periodicals as Scribner’s, the Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s, the pieces were originally scattered across magazines and a short‑lived “Life and Letters” column. The author’s voice is intimate and conversational, inviting listeners to follow his wandering thoughts from a hotel in Lakewood to a Dutch inn in Paris.

The collection ranges from vivid travel portraits of summer colonies and New England towns to incisive commentary on American literary trends, Puritan influences, and the politics of authorship. Interspersed are playful reviews—like “Wild Flowers of the Asphalt”—and heartfelt advice to budding writers, all colored by a genuine love for the written word. Together they reveal a restless mind that sees poetry in the mundane and seeks to share that vision.

Listeners will find a mosaic of late‑Victorian insight, humor, and lyrical observation, offering a window into a world where the boundaries between art and life are deliberately blurred.