Joseph C. Lincoln's Essential Cape Cod Reader

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln

"The dear old Cape! I love it! I love its hills of sand," From "The Surf Along the Shore", Cape Cod Ballads (1902). From 1902 to a year before his death in 1943, Joseph Crosby Lincoln wrote over forty novels, and many more poems and short stories. Every novel he wrote was a success and many were translated into other languages and adapted for screenplays or stage productions. These twenty-two poems, eight short stories, and a novel touch the heart of Lincoln's works and show "essentials" of his writing. Even though celebrated author Joseph C. Lincoln traveled far from his native Cape Cod, Massachusetts, it remained close to his heart and foremost in his novels, short stories, and poems. Though many authors wrote works of literature about Cape Cod, none were more successful or better known than his. His writing was so popular, so vivid, and so accurate in capturing the imagery and spirit of the cape, that he is often described more as a historian than a writer of fiction. In Lincoln's works, the Cape Cod of the past, with picturesque villages and rugged residents, comes vividly alive. Travel to a time when life was simpler, the people were down to earth, and the comforts of "The Old Home House" were just around the corner.

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2006

About the author

Joseph Crosby Lincoln (a.k.a Joseph C. Lincoln) was an American author of novels, poems, and short stories, many set in a fictionalized Cape Cod. Lincoln's work frequently appeared in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and The Delineator.

Lincoln was aware of contemporary naturalist writers, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who used American literature to plumb the depths of human nature, but he rejected this literary exercise. Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied "spinning yarns" that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Two of his stories have been adapted to film.

Lincoln was born in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, but his mother moved the family to Chelsea, Massachusetts, a manufacturing city outside of Boston, after the death of his father. Lincoln's literary career celebrating "old Cape Cod" can partly be seen as an attempt to return to an Eden from which he had been driven by family tragedy. His literary portrayal of Cape Cod can also be understood as a pre-modern haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock which was offered to readers as an antidote to an America that was undergoing rapid modernization, urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. Lincoln was a Republican and a Universalist.

Upon becoming successful, Lincoln spent his winters in northern New Jersey, near the center of the publishing world in Manhattan, but summered in Chatham, Massachusetts. In Chatham, he lived in a shingle-style house named "Crosstrees" that was located on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Lincoln died in 1944, at the age of 73, in Winter Park, Florida.

Reviews

[Mark Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book compiled of poems and short stories started off slow, but the final feature story titled “Cap’n Dan’s Daughter” was a real gem that will stay with me for years. In a way this tale by Lincoln’s is reminiscent of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”. With but one life to live, decisions made with the best intentions, initially chase an artificial lifestyle. One must read this classic to see how the family setting plays out in search of inner peace.