His scenes are sometimes blood-curdling, his characters unusual, and the
deeds described sensational; but in his best work, his manner is so quiet,
his English so elegant, and his treatment so poetic, that the effect is
never crude or harsh, but always mild and harmonious.
JAMES LANE ALLEN, 1849-
James Lane Allen was born in 1849 near Lexington, in the rich blue-grass
section of Kentucky. He did not leave the state until he was twenty-two, so
that his education both at school and college was received in Kentucky, and
all his early and most impressionable years were passed amid Kentucky
scenes. Many of these years were spent on a farm, where his faculty for
observing was used to good advantage. As he grew older, he took his share
in the farm work and labored in the fields of hemp, corn, and wheat, which
he describes in his works. He graduated from Transylvania College,
Lexington, and taught for several years, but after 1884 devoted himself to
writing.
[Illustration: JAMES LANE ALLEN]
In 1891, Allen published _Flute and Violin and Other Kentucky Tales and
Romances_. For artistic completeness, Allen wrote nothing superior to the
story in this collection, entitled, _King Solomon of Kentucky_, a tale of
an idle vagabond who proved capable of a heroism from which many heroes
might have flinched.
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