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Disputed Passage is an intelligent study of the conflict...)
Disputed Passage is an intelligent study of the conflict between amoral pure science and human spiritual values, as told through the relationship of two men of science and the oriental girl who changes-their lives and philosophies.
Idealism vs. Practicality.- In the course of his education, Beaven is torn between two philosophies: the cold pragmatism of Dr. Forster and the humanistic attitudes of kindly Dr. Cunningham. The crisis within Beaven comes to a head when he must choose between his career and his impending marriage to Audrey Hilton. A literally explosive climax in war-torn China brings the story to a logical and satisfying solution.
Also available from Download eBooks by Lloyd Douglas: The Robe; Magnificent Obsession; The Big Fisherman;
(Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal is not a sequel to Magnificen...)
Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal is not a sequel to Magnificent Obsession but rather is an expansion of the philosophy that made that book important, illumined by experiences of Dr. Hudson other than those recorded in the novel. The persons who found inspiration in Magnificent Obsession will feel a deep satisfaction in reading Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal.
Lloyd Cassel Douglas was an American clergyman, essayist, and novelist. His "The Robe" flourished on the best-seller lists from 1942 through 1945.
Background
Douglas was born on August 27, 1877 in Columbia City, Indiana, the son of Alexander Jackson Douglas, a country parson, and his second wife, Sarah Jane Cassel Douglas. Although he emulated his fatherin becoming a clergyman, it was his mother who, from his earliest age, pointed him in that direction.
Education
After attending schools in towns in which his father served, Douglas worked his way through Wittenberg College and Seminary (the Hamma School of Theology of Wittenberg University) in Springfield, Ohio (B. A. , 1900; M. A. and B. D. , 1903).
Career
From 1903 to 1911 Douglas filled Lutheran pastorates in Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D. C. ; thereafter he served for four years as director of religious work at the University of Illinois. From 1915 to 1933 he officiated at Congregational churches in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Los Angeles, and Montreal, Canada; he never stated publicly why he changed denominations. Douglas, whose sermons were marked by homey allusions and a lively narrative style, first reached print with collections of religious essays, among them Wanted: A Congregation (1920) and These Sayings of Mine (1926).
While working on another such volume he decided to incorporate his ideas into fiction, in the hope of reaching a larger audience. Magnificent Obsession, his first novel, is the story of a rich playboy whose life is saved at the cost of another's. Guided by a journal that the dead man, a surgeon of near saintliness, had kept, the hero undergoes a spiritual transformation (a development that occurs in virtually all of Douglas' stories) and carries on the other's noble works. The book, initially rejected by two major houses, was published in 1929 by Willett, Clark and Colby, a small firm that specialized in religious writings. Slow to sell at first, it began to grow in popularity through word of mouth and finally, in 1932, became a best seller.
Douglas thereupon quit the ministry to become a full-time writer, and the Willett firm sold the rights of the book to Houghton Mifflin, which published all Douglas' subsequent works. Douglas' next two books, Forgive Us Our Trespasses (1932) and Precious Jeopardy (1933), also sold well, and with his fourth, Green Light (the top-selling novel of 1935) he became the most popular novelist in the country. Although his fans delighted in his inspirational stories and felt he could do no wrong, in the critics' eyes he could do virtually nothing right. Besides being extremely popular as a novelist, Douglas was considered a spiritual beacon by many (who apparently identified him with the sage minister in Green Light). He was not only a literary phenomenon, but a sociological and religious one as well; among the large numbers who wrote to him for guidance, some urged him to found a new sect, with himself as prophet or leader. More successful novels followed: White Banners (1936), Home for Christmas (1937), Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal and Disputed Passage (both 1939), Invitation to Live (1940), and the climax of Douglas' literary career, The Robe, which flourished on the best-seller lists from 1942 through 1945, selling in all more than 3, 300, 000 copies. The Robe is set at the start of Christianity, although Jesus appears in it only twice. Its protagonist is a young Roman tribune who, against his will, supervises the Crucifixion and eventually, after many vicissitudes, becomes, with his sweetheart, a convert to the new religion, for which he suffers martyrdom.
Explaining that he had been "heavily burdened with arthritis: and I'm tired", Douglas ended his career as a fiction writer with The Big Fisherman (1948), a Biblical story that had as its principals Jesus, Peter, and, once again, another ill-fated young couple. The critics were unimpressed, but once more the author scored a solid success; the book sold in all over 1, 300, 000 copies. Irked that Hollywood had earlier, after much publicity, shelved a projected movie version of The Robe, Douglas "ruled out book clubs, movies, radio broadcasts, condensations and serializations" of The Big Fisherman because he didn't "want anyone fussing and fumbling with it. "
Douglas died on February 13, 1951, in Los Angeles.
Douglas was a large man, bald and bespectacled, with strong features and a benign expression. He loved reading, especially Walt Whitman, and classical music, but otherwise devoted all his time to his work.
Quotes from others about the person
"He takes no more exercise than a turtle, regarding it as a monstrous waste of energy, " said Cosmopolitan magazine. "He will walk on provocation but golf strikes him as silly. "
Interests
Writers
Walt Whitman
Music & Bands
classical music
Connections
Following his ordination as a Lutheran minister, Douglas married, in 1904, Besse Io Porch; they had two daughters. Early in his literary career he had settled in Los Angeles, but after his wife's death in 1944 he lived with one of his daughters in Las Vegas, Nevada.