Dec 30, 2009

Acres and Pains | Literary Precedents

There were several major influences on Perelman's themes and style. A voracious reader throughout his life, Perelman publicly admitted to having been influenced by popular fiction (the Toby Tyler books, Graustark, Girl of the Limberlost, Trail of the Lonesome Pine, The Woman Thou Gavest, The Mystery of Fu Manchu, The Winning of Barbara Worth, Three Weeks, Scaramouche, Polyanna), the Horatio Alger success story, the novels of Charles Dickens, and the writings of H. L. Mencken, George Ade, Stephen Leacock, Max Beerbohm, Ring Lardner, Robert Benchley, Donald Ogden Stewart, Frank...