Kenneth Lewis Roberts (1885 - 1957)

Genre: Non-Fiction, General Fiction

Roberts, who was born in Kennebunk's Storer Mansion and in 1938 built a home called Rocky Pastures in Kennebunkport, graduated from Cornell University in 1908, served in World War I, and was a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post until he quit in 1928 to write his many historical novels and his books of essays and other non-fiction, most set in New England. He won a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1957 for "his historical novels which have long contributed to the creation of greater interest in our early American history."

• Europe's Morning After (1921)
• Why Europe Leaves Home: A True Account of the Reasons Which Cause Central Europeans to Overrun America (1922/1977)
• Sun Hunting: Adventures and observations among the native and migratory tribes of Florida, including the stoical time-killers of Palm Beach, the gentle and gregarious tin-canners of the remote interior, and the vivacious and semi-violent peoples of Miami (1922/2003)
• The Collector's Whatnot: A Compendium, Manual, and Syllabus of Information and Advice on All Subjects Appertaining to the Collection of Antiques, Both Ancient and Not So Ancient (1923/1969); written by Roberts and Booth Tarkington using nom de plumes of Cornelius O. Van Loot, Milton Kilgallen, and Murgatroyd Elphinstone
• Black Magic: An account of its beneficial use in Italy, of its perversion in Bavaria, and of certain tendencies which might necessitate its study in America (1924)
• Concentrated New England: A sketch of Calvin Coolidge (1924)
• Florida Loafing: An investigation into the peculiar state of affairs which leads residents of 47 states to encourage Spanish architecture in the 48th (1925)
• Florida (1926)
• Antiquamania: The collected papers of Professor Milton Kilgallen, F.R.S., of Ugsworth College, elucidating the difficulties in the path of the antique dealer and collector, and presenting various methods of meeting and overcoming them / (1928); written by Roberts and illus. by Booth Tarkington
• Arundel: A Chronicle of the Province of Maine and of the Secret Expedition Against Quebec (1930/1995), about Arnold's expedition, also published as Arundel, Being the Recollections of Steven Nason of Arundel, in the Province of Maine, Attached to the Secret Expedition Led by Colonel Benedict Arnold Against Quebec
• Lively Lady: A Chronicle of Arundel, of Privateering, and of the Circular Prison on Dartmoor (1931/1997), set in the War of 1812, features son of the hero of Arundel. Also published as Lively Lady: A chronicle of certain men of Arundel in Maine, of privateering during the war of impressments, and of the circular prison on Dartmoor.
• Rabble in Arms: A Chronicle of Arundel and the Burgoyne Invasion (1933/1996)
• Captain Caution: A Chronicle of Arundel (1934/1999)
• For Authors Only, and Other Gloomy Essays (1935/1968)
• Northwest Passage (1936/2001)
• It Must be Your Tonsils (1936, with pictures by Paul Galdone)
• March to Quebec: Journals of the Members of Arnold's expedition (1938)
• Trending into Maine (1938/1944), essays on Maine legends, history, seafaring, food; illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
• Oliver Wiswell (1940/1999)
• The Kenneth Roberts Reader (1945/2002), excerpts and essays
• Lydia Bailey (1947/2000)
• Don't Say That About Maine! (1948/1986)
• I Wanted to Write (1949)
• Henry Goss and His Dowsing Rod (1951); Henry Goss was a federal game warden in Maine whose gift of water dousing led to fresh water in Bermuda
• The Seventh Sense (1953)
• Boon Island (1955/1996), about actual shipwreck in early Maine history
• Water Unlimited (1957)
• The Battle of Cowpens: The Great Morale Builder (1957/1981), his last novel

Edgar Allen Beem, in an Aug. 1997 issue of Downeast magazine about Roberts' symbolic novel, Boon Island, calls Roberts "an enormously popular novelist..., an ultra-conservative Republican who inveighed in print against the New Deal and against America's liberal immigration policy." It is said that he so hated Franklin Roosevelt that he glued Roosevelt dimes to the clamshells he used as ashtrays, the better to grind ashes into FDR's face! His friend and summer neighbor, Booth Tarkington, apparently shared his political views. More information about Roberts is available online through Suite 101 and in Maine: An Encyclopedia. The University of New Hampshire Library has some of Roberts correspondence, publications, and other papers.

Incidentally, Roberts' niece, Marjorie Mosser, collected the recipes published in her book, Good Maine Food (1939; 1947), for which Roberts wrote the introduction and notes.


Last Update: 06/03/2007

(Return to List)