1897, The Choir Invisible, James Lane Allen

Book Description: Macmillan, 1898. Hardcover. 361 clean pages plus ad, 4.75" x 6.75'' tall, 1" thick. Dark blue cloth, elegant gold pictorial boards of flowers decor, top page ends gold gilt, others rough cut. Light general wear. Previous owners library gift stamp and signature (From Thaddeus L. Montgomery's Library).

Book Condition: Very Good+++ for a book over 114 years old.

Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket (as issued).

About This Book: The Choir Invisible. New York: Macmillan, 1897. This was Allen's most popular book, a best-seller translated into many languages. It is an historical novel which begins in 1795 in Lexington. The protagonist is the John Gray of Allen's earlier novel who shares a mutual attraction with a married woman who is as reluctant as he to break prevailing codes of honor.

"O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence. . .
. . . feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused
And in diffusion evermore intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world."

GEORGE ELIOT

About The Author: James Lane Allen (December 21, 1849 – February 18, 1925) was an American novelist and short story writer whose work, including the novel A Kentucky Cardinal, often depicted the culture and dialects of his native Kentucky. His work is characteristic of the late-19th century local color era, when writers sought to capture the vernacular in their fiction. Allen has been described as "Kentucky's first important novelist."

Allen was born near Lexington, Kentucky, and his youth there during the Ante-bellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods heavily influenced his writing. He graduated from Transylvania University in 1872, delivering the Salutatorian address in Latin. In 1893 Allen moved to New York City, where he lived until his death. He was a contributor to Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, and other popular magazines of the time. Allen is buried in Lexington Cemetery.

At the northern edge of Gratz Park in Lexington is the "Fountain of Youth", built in memory of Allen using proceeds willed to the city by him.

James Lane Allen (1849-1925)

by George Brosi

James Lane Allen was born on a farm near Lexington, Kentucky on December 21, 1849. As a young boy, he lived the life of the Southern ante-bellum gentry, but by the time he was a teenager the Civil War and Reconstruction had ushered in a new era for both himself and his family. James Klotter sums up Allen's background in The Kentucky Encyclopedia by saying, "His mother--to whom Laney (as he was known in childhood) dedicated six of his first eight books--brought him up in an idealistic, romantic world filled with stories of honor and chivalry, where gallant and noble gentlemen courted women of spotless virtue. Yet in adulthood, Allen saw around him a new industrial America where, it seemed, ethics were replaced by greed, honor by corruption, purity by vulgarity."

Allen graduated from Transylvania University in 1872, giving the Salutatorian address in Latin. He received his Masters degree from Transylvania in 1877. Then he embarked upon a teaching career with took him not only back home to his own school district and his alma mater in Kentucky, but to Missouri and West Virginia as well. In West Virginia he taught at Bethany College where another well-known Kentucky author, Caroline Gordon, was later to be a student. By the 1880s he was publishing regularly in the most prestigious magazines. His fiction pieces were reprinted in book form in 1891. His non-fiction pieces appeared in 1892.

In 1893 James Lane Allen moved to New York City to pursue writing full time. He lived the rest of his life there. In 1894 his novel, A Kentucky Cardinal, was released, making him a commercial as well as a critical success. It was followed by the even more successful novel, The Choir Invisible in 1897. The Reign of Law (1900) also was successful, but because it was one of the first American novels to deal opening with religious doubt and Darwinism, it angered many churchmen and alienated Allen from some of his readership. The Mettle of the Pasture (1903) was his last commercial success. It was followed by almost a dozen lesser novels. In February 1925, James Lane Allen died. He was brought to Lexington, Kentucky, to be buried.

James Lane Allen was truly a literary writer even though he did achieve some fleeting commercial success as well. Although his works were very pleasing in their flowing style, they were also substantive, dealing with important themes of the day, often at the cutting edge of discourse. His obvious skill and depth make him an exemplary initiator of the Kentucky literary tradition. As Klotter said, he was "Kentucky's first important novelist". William Ward in his Literary History of Kentucky reinforces and sharpens this observation by naming Allen as "The principal interpreter and last champion of [Kentucky's]...pre-Civil War gentry".