Kenneth Roberts

American novelist Kenneth Roberts was born in Kennebunk, Maine, in 1885. He received his higher education at Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1908. From 1907-18 he was on the staff of the "Boston Post" newspaper, first as a columnist and then, when his column proved extremely popular, he was given his own page. In 1918 he joined the US Army and served as a captain in the intelligence service of the Siberian Expeditionary Force. He returned to the US in that same year and secured a position on the "Saturday Evening Post" magazine, first in Washington and then in Europe, and remained there until 1928. He left the Post, and journalism, in 1928 and traveled to Italy, intent on writing a series of historical novels set in New England in the period of the American Revolution. The first novel in this series, "Arundel"--which was the original Indian name for his home town of Kennebunk--was published in 1930. It was noted for its almost fanatical attention to accuracy, a trait he continued in the following novels. Roberts had been infuriated over the years at what he considered sloppiness by many historians covering that period, and became a stickler for accuracy in even the most seemingly obscure details. His best-known work would likely be "Northwest Passage", an adventure based on the real-life exploits of a soldier, explorer and renowned Indian fighter named Maj. Robert Rogers, who had attempted to find a fabled waterway known as the "Northwest Passage" that was said to run the entire length of the US (the book was made into a very successful film starring Spencer Tracy, Northwest Passage (1940), and a television series, Northwest Passage (1958)). He also had another successful novel in "Lydia Bailey", an adventure story set in 1802 Haiti, when the population rose against the French colonial administration. It was also made into a film, Lydia Bailey (1952). He died in 1957 in Kennebunkport, ME.