Irving Bacheller

Irving Bacheller was elected to the Century in 1915; and he died February 24, 1950. He was ninety years old. All his long life he was an active, gregarious, good-humored man: “The most human human-being that ever lived,” as one of his friends remarked.

He was a graduate of St. Lawrence College, near his birthplace at Pierrepont, N.Y. He was always interested in his alma mater, and this interest was later shared by Rollins College at Winter Park, Florida, of which he became a trustee in 1922.

In 1898 he became Sunday Editor of “The World.” When a “World” executive heard he was planning to write a novel, he told him: “I don’t want a man who has a novel on his chest. Get it off and then come back to work.”

The novel was “Eben Holden”; and it sold so well that its author never returned to newspaper work.

Whenever he was in the City, Mr. Bacheller made the Century his headquarters. A person of regular habits, he came to the Club each morning and retired to his favorite chair in the northwest corner of the Graham Library to write.

Many of his books were written in the Club and his gratitude to the Librarian of the Century is expressed in the preface to some of his later volumes.

There was nothing he liked so much as to be joined by his friends after luncheon for leisure talk in the Graham Library.

Later in the day, he would go to the Billiard Room for a game at which he had considerable skill.

He was a distinguished man of letters and an old-fashioned gentleman.

George W. Martin
1951/1952 Century Association Yearbook