Background
Vaughan Kester, the son of Franklin Cooley and Harriett Watkins Kester, was born on September 12, 1869 at New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States.
Vaughan Kester, the son of Franklin Cooley and Harriett Watkins Kester, was born on September 12, 1869 at New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States.
Kester was educated in the public schools of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, and by a private tutor in Cleveland, where his mother established a school of art.
As a young man, Kester traveled much in the South and West, spending some time on a ranch in Colorado; the influence of these experiences is discoverable in most of his work.
After having lived in Florida, New York City, and England, Kester finally settled at "Gunston Hall, " the former home of George Mason which he bought in 1908. During his residence in New York City, he served on the staff of the Cosmopolitan Magazine and assisted his brother, Paul Kester, in promoting special performances of Ibsen's Ghosts and other modern plays. His ambition to write was awakened by his association with William Dean Howells, his mother's cousin, who continued to give encouragement, counsel, and practical assistance throughout the literary career of his protégé.
Kester began his career in literature by writing short stories for the magazines. His episodic tale, "The Bad Man of Las Vegas, " which appeared in Munsey's Magazine, January 1900, reveals his flair for melodramatic situation and the portrayal of indigenous types of character. In his first novel, The Manager of the B & A (1901), which was accepted by Harper & Brothers through the influence of Howells, there is a sensational plot, which includes such materials as a workers' strike, a political campaign, a forest fire, and a murder; but there is also realistic description of a small town in the lumber region of Michigan, where the scene of the action is laid, and the dialogue is genuine and racy.
John o' Jamestown (1907), published appropriately when the celebration of the tercentenary of the first settlement in Virginia was in progress, is a historical novel based upon the career of Captain John Smith. Like Kester's other work, it is marked by vivid description, stirring incident, and sincerity of purpose. Published only a short time before his death, but not too late for Kester to know that his book had been received enthusiastically by both the critics and the reading public, The Prodigal Judge (1911) was not only his most popular novel but his finest achievement. The book is weak structurally, and many of its incidents are melodramatic; but the picture of a frontier settlement in western Tennessee has a compelling authenticity. A fourth book by Kester, a group of short stories, collected from various magazines, was published posthumously under the title, The Hand of the Mighty (1913). Two stories in this volume, "Mr. Feeny's Social Experiment" and the title story, "The Hand of the Mighty, " are of particular interest for their somewhat socialistic criticisms of capitalism.
On August 31, 1898, Kester married Jessie B. Jennings, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio.