On December 1, 1911, at about eight o'clock in the evening, a thirty-six-year-old man picked up a pen and began to write a story. This man had lived out almost half his life and was, by his own standards, a failure. He had tried many different occupations--serving as a cavalryman in Arizona, working for his family's battery concern, punching cattle on his brothers' ranch in Pocatello, Idaho, managing a department for Sears, Roebuck & Co. in Chicago, prospecting for gold in Idaho and Oregon-- and had failed at all of them. Recently, however, he had achieved a small success; a serialized fantasy story he had written for a pulp magazine had been accepted for publication, and brought him $400. He had completed another story, a pseudo-historical romance, but it alone would not provide for his wife and little children. That night he would try to duplicate his first success. He wrote: "I...