Early Life and Career
Willard Huntington Wright was born to Archibald Davenport Wright and Annie Van Vranken Wright on October 15, 1888, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College and Harvard University without graduating. In 1907, Wright married Katharine Belle Boynton of Seattle, Washington. He married for a second time in October 1930. His wife was Eleanor Rulapaugh, known professionally as Claire De Lisle, a portrait painter.
At the age of twenty-one, Wright began his professional writing career as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times. Wright's early career in literature (1910–1919) followed literary naturalism. He wrote a novel, The Man of Promise, and some short stories in this mode. He also published similar fiction by others as editor of the New York literary magazine The Smart Set, from 1912 to 1914.
Wright's book What Nietzsche Taught appeared in 1915. It described and commented on all of Nietzsche's books, and also provided quotations from each book. Recently Brooks Hefner revealed heretofore unknown short stories that featured an intellectual criminal, written by Wright under a pseudonym several years before his adoption of the Van Dine pseudonym.
In 1917, Wright published Misinforming a Nation, in which he mounted a scathing attack on alleged inaccuracies and English biases in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.
Read more about this topic: S. S. Van Dine
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Undershaft: Alcohol is a very necessary article. It heals the sick—Barbara: It does nothing of the sort. Undershaft: Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)