Educated at William & Mary College, Cabell was an exeptionally bright student and even taught French and Greek as an undergraduate. After graduation he moved to New York and worksed for the New York Herald as a social reporter. In 1901, he returned to Richmond and worked for a time at the Richmond News. Cabell wrote short stories and articles for a number of periodicals including the Saturday Evening Post and Harper's Monthly until 1911, when he joined his uncle's coal mining company as a bookkeeper. His first book, The Eagle's Shadow, was published in 1904, but was largely ignored by the critics. By 1918, he had published ten more novels, but it wasn't until the publication of Jurgen in 1919 that his fame was established. Considered obscene at the time, the controversy surrounding the book, which included criminal charges being levied under the anti-obscenity laws, only helped to make the book a success. Cabell created a mythical medieval French province called Proctesme as a backdrop for many of his works, which eventually ran to 18 volumes and became The Biography of the Life of Manuel. Cabell's close friends included Ellen Glasgow, H.L. Mencken, Hergesheimer, Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis, to name a few. From 1919 to 1926 Cabell was an editor of the Virginia War History Commission and from 1932 to 1935 was part of the editorial board of the American Spectator with Dreiser and Eugene O'Neill. Cabell's popularity waned during the 1930's, but today his work is considered unique and has attracted a modern readership. Among his other works are The Line of Love (1905), Chivalry (1909), The Certain Hour (1916), The Jewel Merchants (1921) - his only play, The High Place (1923), Something About Eve (1927) Between Dawn and Sunrise (1930), Hamlet Had an Uncle (1940), Let Me Lie (1947) and As I Remember It (1955). |
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