Floyd Dell was an American editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, author. Dell has been called "one of the most flamboyant, versatile, and influential American Men of Letters of the first third of the 20th Century.
Background
Floyd was born on June 28, 1887, in Barry, Illinois, United States; son of Anthony Dell and Kate (Crone) Dell. In 1899 the Dell family moved to Quincy, Illinois, United States. In 1903 the family left Quincy for Davenport, Iowa, United States and richer cultural life than that of Barry or Quincy.
Education
Floyd attended high school in Quincy, Illinois, United States.
Career
Anthony struggled and failed throughout Floyd’s childhood to regain the same financial stability he had enjoyed before the Panic of 1873. That early experience of poverty was a major influence on Floyd Dell’s development as a writer.
At the Davenport Public Library, Dell immersed himself in the works of the English poets. In 1904 his first published poem, “Memorial,” appeared in the Davenport Times. He subsequently published several poems in Davenport newspapers and sold four of his poems to national magazines.
In 1904 Dell dropped out of high school to work in a candy factory but soon was fired; the following summer he began working at the Times as a cub reporter. Dell flourished as a writer partly because his mentor, librarian Marilla Freeman, foresaw a literary future for him and worked to convince him and others of his promise. He also became acquainted with authors George Cram Cook, Arthur Davison Ficke, Harry Hansen, and Susan Glaspell, who became his companions in Davenport, Chicago, and New York.
Dell became active in Davenport’s Socialist Party, serving on its program committee and as financial secretary and delegate to the state convention. In January 1906 Dell began contributing articles to the local socialist magazine, Tri-City Worker, in August he became editor and published more than a dozen muckraking articles before the magazine ceased publication that October. The five years that Dell spent in Davenport helped to shape the leftist writer and social activist that the rest of the world soon came to know. His first novel, Moon-Calf (1920), demonstrates the significance of his time in Davenport; much of the story is set in the fictional town of Port Royal, modeled on Davenport.
In 1909 Dell moved to Chicago and became a well-known critic, literary editor, and leading figure of the Chicago Renaissance. In that same year, Dell married Margery Currey, but their marriage ended after four years. From 1909 to 1913 Dell wrote for the Friday Literary Review, a supplement of the Chicago Evening Post; in 1911 he became editor and hired George Cram Cook as assistant editor. In the fall of 1913, after a disagreement with the Post, Dell left for Greenwich Village.
That December Dell became an editor of the radical magazine Masses, where he expressed his political and social opinions through essays, book reviews, and short stories. On April 15, 1918, Dell, with four other Masses staffers, was indicted under the Wartime Espionage Act for hindering the war effort, but two trials ended in hung juries.
After the publication of the Masses was subsequently suppressed, Dell became editor of the Liberator, a socialist publication that continued until 1924. From 1914 to 1929 Dell was also a member of the board of editors for another socialist journal, the New Review.
During that time Dell also wrote several plays for the Liberal Club, beginning with his play St. George in Greenwich Village. In November 1916 Dell’s play, King Arthur’s Socks was presented by the Provincetown Players, which produced four of his plays.
After Moon-Calf, Dell published 10 more novels, but his first novel remained his most popular. In the mid-1920s Dell became disillusioned with the Socialist Party. Although he remained a liberal until his death, after the mid-1920s he no longer was associated with any radical party. In 1935 the Dells moved to Washington, D.C., where he took a job with the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration. He continued to write essays, reviews, and poetry, and he aided scholars with his personal reflections until his death in Bethesda, Maryland.
Quotations:
“Children are notoriously curious about everything, everything except... the things people want them to know. It then remains for us to refrain from forcing any kind of knowledge upon them, and they will be curious about everything.”
“Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.”
“I thought that jealousy was an idea. It isn't. It's a pain. But I didn't feel as they do in a Broadway melodrama. I didn't want to kill anybody. I just wanted to die.”
Connections
In 1909, Dell married Margery Currey, but their marriage ended after four years. On February 8, 1919, Dell married B. Marie Gage. They bought a second home in Croton, New York, and moved in permanently in March 1921. They had two sons, Anthony and Christopher.
Father:
Anthony Dell
Mother:
Kate (Crone) Dell
Spouse:
Berta-Marie Gage
Son:
Christopher Dell
Son:
Anthony Dell
ex-spouse:
Margery Currey
References
The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa
Iowa has been blessed with citizens of strong character who have made invaluable contributions to the state and to the nation. In the 1930s alone, such towering figures as John L. Lewis, Henry A. Wallace, and Herbert Hoover hugely influenced the nation’s affairs.