SOURCE: "Robert Hichens," in Some English Story Tellers: A Book of the Younger Novelists, Henry Holt and Company, 1912, pp. 342-75.

An American educator, biographer, and editor, Cooper served for many years as literary critic at the Bookman, a popular early twentieth-century literary magazine. In the following essay, he surveys Hichens's early works, from The Green Carnation to The Fruitful Vine, commenting on his themes, style, and development as a writer.

It is almost a score of years since Mr. Robert Hichens first sprang into local notoriety through The Green Carnation, which set all London buzzing hotly anent the identity of its bold literary and social lampoons. It was just ten years later that he obtained at last an international recognition, with The Garden of Allah, in which for the first time, and perhaps for the last, the inherent bigness of his theme and the titanic majesty of his...