Author spotlight: Joseph C. Lincoln

Over the weekend, I read The Aristocratic Miss Brewster by Joseph C. Lincoln, published by D. Appleton & Company in 1927. It only reinforced my plan to get my hands on more books written by Lincoln, and indulge myself. I've read nine already, but he was a prolific author and I have quite a few to go. Humorous, witty, wise, down-to-earth, unpretentious, suspenseful, romantic, occasionally over the top, full of a lively array of characters -- his Cape Cod novels are, for the most part, small treasures, at least the ones I've read so far.

They're entertaining, for one thing. But they're more than that. A while back, Headmistress over at The Common Room did a post on how she liked to use books to teach her children about character flaws and the consequences of poor choices. And then she did follow-up posts: Part 2 and Part 3.

The Lincoln books could be first rate for that. The heroes and heroines aren't perfect, and often get duped by slick cons; the villains often pretend to be friendly, even generous; a lot of trouble comes from simple, honest misunderstandings. Gossips put their oars in, do-gooders get out of hand, longstanding feuds cause trouble, but so does plain old-fashioned snobbery. The books are entirely clean, but not even remotely antiseptic. You can ignore the morals of the story if you want to, and just go along for the sometimes riotous ride -- or let kindly honorary uncle Joseph Lincoln clue you in on some of the common pitfalls of life. Your choice.

I see that a website devoted to Cape Cod history has a whole section on the author: see Joseph C. Lincoln - bibliography, filmography, reviews. From there, I see that The Aristocratic Miss Brewster is available online, at Project Gutenberg of Australia, here.

Some of his books led to movies. See imdb's page on Lincoln here.