James Branch Cabell photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1935
Born
(1879-04-14)April 14, 1879 Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Died
May 5, 1958(1958-05-05) (aged 79) Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Resting place
Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Occupation
Author
Alma mater
College of William and Mary
Genre
Fantasy fiction
James Branch Cabell (/ˈkæbəl/; April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles-lettres. Cabell was well-regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."[1][2]
Although escapist, Cabell's works are ironic and satirical. Mencken disputed Cabell's claim to romanticism and characterized him as "really the most acidulous of all the anti-romantics. His gaudy heroes ... chase dragons precisely as stockbrockers play golf." According to Louis D. Rubin, Cabell saw art as an escape from life, but found that, once the artist creates his ideal world, it is made up of the same elements that make the real one.[1]
Interest in Cabell declined in the 1930s, a decline that has been attributed in part to his failure to move out of his fantasy niche despite the onset of World War II. Alfred Kazin said that "Cabell and Hitler did not inhabit the same universe".[1]
The library at Virginia Commonwealth University is named after Cabell.
^ abcLouis D. Rubin; Louis Decimus Rubin Jr. (1967), The Curious Death of the Novel: Essays in American Literature, LSU Press, ISBN 0-8071-2470-2
^James Branch Cabell (August 2008). Between Dawn and Sunrise. Wildside Press LLC. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-4344-7445-2.
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