Webster, Henry Kitchell, 1875-1932

Illinois author.

Henry Kitchell Webster was at one time one of the most popular authors of magazine serials in America, as well as a prolific novelist, whose writing ranged from serious social commentary to charming adventure, romance and mystery yarns. Webster was born and spent his life in Evanston, Illinois. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1897, taught for a year, and then settled down to begin his literary career. He and his friend Samuel Merwin collaborated on several works such as Calumet K in 1901, using Chicago as inspiration. Webster then continued to write novels until 1929, and became instrumental in making books into best sellers. Two of his most popular and admired works were An American Family in 1918, and Mary Wollaston in 1920. Webster became wildly successful as a highly paid writer of stories, and his steady flow of short fiction was in continual demand by such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Everybody's and McClure's. To satisfy a reading public eager for pleasant diversion, he set himself up as a one-man fiction factory, dictating his work to a stenographer at the rate of 20,000 words a week. There also was a great demand by a growing film industry for characters and plots, and as early as 1912 Webster worked on a screen scenario for a story, "Cinderella", and in 1915, "The Green Cloak." Webster was a sociable man with many friends, a joiner of local clubs, and active in Chicago and Evanston affairs. In 1901 he married Mary Ward Orth and they had three sons: Henry Kitchell, Stokely, and Roderick Sheldon. He died in Evanston in 1932.