Career
A graduate of Columbia University, in addition to his original fiction he wrote opera and musical comedy librettos for several composers. In 1927 he penned a widely praised English translation of Gounod"s Faust for Vladimir Rosing"s American Opera Company. His writing varied in subject from social criticism (Our Little Girl) to detective fiction (The Weekend Mystery) to the satire of artists and musicians (Sweet & Low).
Books
Our Little Girl (1923)
The Week-end Mystery (1926)
Sweet & Low: A Smashing Indictment of the Younger Generation (1926)
Bronx Ballads (1927)
The Pamphlet Poets: The New York Wits" (1927)
Translations
Fräulein Else (1926) by Arthur Schnitzler
Faust (1927) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Librettos
The Swordsman (1927) musical play based on The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père composed by Louis East. Gensler
Maria Malibran (1935) opera composed by Robert Russell Bennett
Garick (1937) opera composed by Albert Stoessel
Beauty and the Beast (1937) opera composed by Vittorio Giannini
Rehearsal Call (1962) opera composed by Vittorio Giannini
Count Ory: a comic opera in two acts (1963) composed by Vittorio Giannini.