Summary
Summary of American Nights Entertainment
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Writers come into view through portraits
Grant M. Overton approaches books through the people who make them. His portraits bring together a writer’s life, working habits and books, then offer a direct judgment of the results. The aim is to show who stands behind the novels on the shelf.
The portraits do not all take the same shape. A river story, a courtroom speech and a conversation with Alice sit beside guides to different kinds of books. Together they reveal a reading world shaped by individual lives and tastes.
Key idea 2
Galsworthy leaves room for conflicting loyalties
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Key idea 3
Different books answer different desires
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Key idea 4
Conrad turns experience toward self knowledge
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Key idea 5
Plain messages reach ordinary readers
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Key idea 6
Tarkington learns to trust his art
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Key idea 7
Writers change as they know themselves
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Key idea 8
A critic also reveals his limits
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Key idea 9
Judge the work against its purpose
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who enjoy literary gossip and lively portraits will love it, along with anyone who collects reading lists, admires Conrad or Galsworthy, or wants to hear how writers of the 1920s worked, lived and sold their books.
What this book is
American Nights Entertainment is a book of literary portraits by Grant M. Overton, written in 1923 for readers who wanted to know who stood behind the novels on the shelf. Overton sketches the writers of his day, from John Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad to Edith Wharton, Booth Tarkington and Christopher Morley. Each portrait gives a life, a way of working, and a plain verdict on the books.
The chapters change shape as you go. One is a story told by Marlow on a dark river. One is a courtroom speech about the lawyer and novelist Arthur Train. One is a chat between Alice and the White Queen about children's books. Between the portraits come guided tours of travel books, thrillers, poems, plays, biographies and science. Most chapters close with a list of the author's titles and where to read more.
What you get is a map of the reading world in the early 1920s, drawn by a critic who likes his subjects and says what he thinks. Let us begin with John Galsworthy, a man who says very little and shows nearly everything.
In this summary
- 1Galsworthy hides his loyalties in plain sightFree
- 2Books can carry you away or leave you breathless
- 3Marlow tells Conrad's life on a dark river
- 4Documents and houses shape two careers
- 5Two preachers write for ordinary readers
- 6Tarkington, Stewart and Gale pay different prices
- 7Nature and Cape Cod make two steady storytellers
- 8Wharton and Morley change course with the years
- 9The reading guides
Key point 1 of 9
Galsworthy hides his loyalties in plain sight
Overton opens in the autumn of 1922, when New York is watching John Galsworthy's play Loyalties. Critics keep explaining the man by outside facts. They say his Jewish character guaranteed a success, that The Man of Property came from his Socialism, and that Justice came from a prison sentence. Overton thinks these tidy stories miss the point.
His own answer sits in the title. An earlier critic wrote that Galsworthy cannot see how two conflicting loyalties could both be right. Overton says the reverse is true. In every novel and play Galsworthy shows two or more sides and chooses none, so that at the end he offers only a recommendation for mercy. Galsworthy himself admits that we cannot have things both ways, and Overton adds that he has never learned that lesson.
The portrait is of a quiet, transparent man. Overton calls him a prism, not a lamp. He sets him beside Conrad, whose dark sentences still give off light and heat, while Galsworthy keeps a cool, low key even in a moving story. He will not talk about himself, and one observer sums up his conversation in a single word, exhausted. Yet his tight lips, another critic notes, are tight because of things done to others.
The life follows. Galsworthy is born in 1867 in Surrey, goes to Harrow and Oxford, and is called to the bar in 1890, though he dislikes the law. He travels instead, and on a ship from Adelaide to the Cape he meets Conrad, who becomes a close friend. His first books appear in 1899 and 1900, but The Man of Property in 1906 makes his name. It opens the Forsyte Saga, which follows three generations of an English family whose chief passion is property, whether in wives, houses, money or reputation.
Overton then quotes a visitor's account of Grove Lodge in Hampstead, with its sheepdog named Mark, its soft-spoken hostess, and its tall, gray-haired host who puts guests at ease while feeling uneasy himself. He notes how little Galsworthy gives in Who's Who. He argues that this is not selflessness. Galsworthy simply speaks of himself through imagined men, women and animals, and his own prefaces say as much, since he writes that a novelist does little more than dissect himself.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Check yourself
How does Overton describe Galsworthy’s handling of conflicting loyalties?
Right. “In every novel and play Galsworthy shows two or more sides and chooses none, so that at the end he offers only a recommendation for mercy.”Not quite. “In every novel and play Galsworthy shows two or more sides and chooses none, so that at the end he offers only a recommendation for mercy.”
What does Overton see as the cost of Tarkington’s charm?
Right. “Overton thinks Booth Tarkington's charm was a handicap, because being a good fellow kept him from taking himself seriously.”Not quite. “Overton thinks Booth Tarkington's charm was a handicap, because being a good fellow kept him from taking himself seriously.”
What recurring test does Overton bring to a writer’s work?
Right. “He asks whether a writer knows himself, and whether the work is true to what the writer is.”Not quite. “He asks whether a writer knows himself, and whether the work is true to what the writer is.”
Questions about American Nights Entertainment
What is American Nights Entertainment about?
It is a set of portraits of writers of the early 1920s, including Galsworthy, Conrad, Wharton, Tarkington and Morley. Between the portraits come guides to travel books, thrillers, poetry, plays, biography and children's reading, each with a list of titles.
Who wrote American Nights Entertainment and when?
Grant M. Overton wrote it, and it speaks of events up to 1923. He was an American critic who died in 1930. His pages reflect the publishing world of the early 1920s, when many of his subjects were still at work.
Is the Marlow chapter about Conrad a true account?
Marlow is a character from Conrad's own fiction, so the telling is invented, with Marlow as a narrator on a boat at night. The facts it gives about Conrad's life, such as his Polish birth, his sea career and his struggle for income, come from the record.
Which writers does the book cover?
The portraits include John Galsworthy, Joseph Conrad, Arthur Train, V. Sackville-West, Harold Bell Wright, Ralph Connor, Booth Tarkington, Donald Ogden Stewart, Zona Gale, Gene Stratton-Porter, Joseph C. Lincoln, Edith Wharton, Christopher Morley and Lothrop Stoddard.
Is American Nights Entertainment worth reading today?
It offers lively sketches, shrewd opinions and reading lists that show how readers chose books in 1923. The chapters vary in form, from a story to a courtroom speech, so there is always something new, and the lists point to many authors.
