author
Wallace E. Baker
d. 1913
A little-known early 20th-century writer remembered for a single, haunting work, he left behind a deeply personal record of despair that was published in 1913. That book, Diary of a Suicide, has endured because of its raw honesty and unusual place in literary history.
1 Audiobook
The Glebe 1913/11 (Vol. 1, No. 2): Diary of a Suicide
by Wallace E. Baker
About the author
Very little is firmly documented about this elusive author beyond what survives around his book Diary of a Suicide. Contemporary publication records show the work was issued in 1913 by Albert and Charles Boni as part of The Glebe, a literary magazine that devoted individual issues to a single writer.
The book presents itself as the diary of a young man in emotional crisis, and the publication identifies Wallace E. Baker as having died in 1913. Surviving catalog and public-domain editions repeat the account that his body was identified in New York after his death, which has given the work a stark, posthumous reputation.
Because so little else can be confirmed, Baker remains a shadowy figure in literary history. What keeps his name alive is the unusual intensity of Diary of a Suicide—a brief, intimate work that still stands out as a rare and unsettling document from its era.