Why Authors Go Wrong, and Other Explanations

This early 20th-century literary polemic takes aim at the sacred cows of American letters, demanding to know why so many promising writers produce mediocrity instead of masterpieces. Grant M. Overton, writing from an era when literature still commanded cultural reverence, treats authorial failure as something close to moral failure - not because writers owe us perfection, but because they've accepted a sacred trust. The book dissects specific authors and their shortcomings with the confidence of a surgeon and the indignation of a prophet. What emerges is less a rigid rulebook than a portrait of what an earlier generation considered the responsibilities of authorship. For modern readers, it serves as a fascinating artifact - a window into what critics once valued, what they reviled, and why they believed words carried weight beyond entertainment.