Ohio History Journal

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THE LEATHER WOOD GOD

THE LEATHER WOOD GOD

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FROM NARRATIVE TO NOVEL

 

by HASKELL S. SPRINGER

 

 

In 1916, at the age of seventy-nine, William Dean Howells published the

last great novel of his long career. Less than four years later he was dead.

In writing The Leatherwood God Howells was fulfilling a long-time inten-

tion to make use of his enthusiasm for the history of his native Ohio,

as well as -- in the way of an old man -- returning to the recollections of

his boyhood.1 His source for the basic story of the book, as acknowledged

in a "Publisher's Note," was an account in the Ohio Valley Historical Series

by R. H. Taneyhill, published in 1871 and entitled The Leatherwood God:

 

 

NOTES ARE ON PAGE 212