Louis Bromfield was one of the many writers of his generation for whom residence in France provided a clearer understanding of his American subject matter. A native of Mansfield, Ohio, Bromfield and his family moved to his grandfather's farm during his last year of high school, and Bromfield contemplated a career as a farmer. He studied agriculture briefly at Cornell, but abandoned it to study journalism at Columbia in 1916. Later that year he went to France, where he served as an ambulance driver for nearly two years until the war ended in 1918. The French government later awarded him the Croix de Guerre for his service during the war. He returned to the United States late in 1919 and held a variety of writing jobs including that of drama and music critic for the Bookman.

The publication in 1924 of his first novel, The Green Bay Tree, brought him instant acclaim...