E. W. Howe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edgar Watson Howe (May 3, 1853 - October 3, 1937), sometimes referred to as E. W. Howe, was an American novelist and newspaper and magazine editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was perhaps best known for his magazine, E.W. Howe's Monthly. Howe was well traveled and known for his sharp wit in his editorials.
Howe is known to have begun his journalistic career as far back as March 22, 1873, when as a 19-year-old he came to Golden, Colorado from Platte City, Nebraska and partnered with William F. Dorsey to acquire the Golden Eagle newspaper. Renaming it the Golden Globe, it was the second main newspaper of Golden and served a Republican readership and political bent. Howe, who took over complete ownership by the end of the year, quickly gained a sharp-witted editorial reputation in the community that would preview his national fame. Within a couple of years Howe sold the Globe to his brother A.J. Howe and partner William Grover Smith, and moved to Falls City, Nebraska in 1875, where he established a new Globe newspaper, affectionately called the "Little Globe". In 1875 he merged this with the Nemaha Valley Journal and it became the Globe-Journal. In 1877 Howe established and edited the Atchison, Kansas, newspaper Globe, which he continued for twenty-five years, retiring in 1911. Having been raised Methodist, he described himself as identifying with Methodism but is essentially a cultural Christian, according to his writing. Howe's most famous novel is Story of a Country Town. A 1919 edition of his Ventures in Common Sense featured a foreword by celebrated American writer (and cynic) H.L. Mencken.
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EDGAR W. HOWE
from History of Kansas Newspapers (1916)
FROM "Who 's Who in America": Edgar Watson Howe; born, Treaty, Ind., May 3, 1852; common-school education; been in printing office since ten years old; publisher Golden (Colo.) Globe at 19; started Atchison (Kan.) Globe, 1876; turned business over to sons, 1912; since in retirement, and editor E. W. Howe's Monthly. Author: "The Story of a Country Town," "The Mystery of the Locks," "The Moonlight Boy," "A Man Story," "Daily Notes of a Trip Around the World," "The Trip to the West Indies," "Travel Letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa," "Country Town Sayings," "Pagan Psalms," "The Hundred Stories of a Country Town." Address: Atchison, Kan.
William Allen White: E. W. Howe is the most remarkable man Kansas or the Middle West has produced. Moreover, he has written the greatest novel ever written in or about Kansas or the Middle West. His "Story of a Country Town" is one of the ten best novels written in America.
American Magazine, August, 1915: E. W. Howe, famous for his wisdom and ability to write, is one of America's real possessions.
Dr. Frank Crane, in New York Globe: E. W. Howe is a national-institution. On earth, in the heavens above, or in the waters beneath the earth, there is nothing like his Monthly; it is a broad stream of horse sense; he is giving to the world the most perfect example of self-expression with which I am familiar.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: There is merit enough in E. W. Howe's Monthly to give it a national reading. Labouchere's Truth was never better.
W. D. Howells: E. W. Howe's "Story of a Country Town" is a very remarkable piece of realism, and constitutes a part of the only literary movement of our time that seems to have vitality in it.
Edward Bok: E. W. Howe's "Daily Notes of a Trip Around the World" is a lesson in travel writing that is worth while. I can not imagine a person who should not read this book.
S. S. McClure: I have read E. W. Howe's travel letters with tremendous interest. I do not know that I have ever read any book of travel equally well done.
New York Sun: E, W. Howe's travel book has the humor of Mark Twain.
