Peter B. Kyne, self-proclaimed businessman-turned-author, displayed no pretension to literary greatness when he referred to his "alleged literary output" in the dedication to his novel Never the Twain Shall Meet (1923). He also stated that "with the years I developed into a journeyman sufficiently skilled to make my cockeyed profession pay well." Author of twenty-five novels and some one thousand short stories and articles during his long writing career, Kyne was certainly prolific, if not profound. Though he observed that "the world lost a good salesman when I became a writer," one may safely say that Kyne found the formula for commercial literary success and sold his publishers and his public exactly what they wanted.

Peter Bernard Kyne was born in San Francisco, California, to John and Mary Cresham Kyne. He had his only formal education in a one-room public school, from which, in his words, he "did not...