W. C. Morrow

William Chambers Morrow was an American writer, now noted mainly for his short stories of horror and suspense. He is probably best known for the much-anthologised story "His Unconquerable Enemy" (1889), about the implacable revenge of a servant whose limbs have been amputated on the orders of a cruel rajah. His first novel, Blood-Money (1882), about the Mussel Slough Tragedy, was an indictment of the conduct of California railroad companies which were forcing settlers off their land. It gained little attention, and in fact Morrow took a position in the public relations department of the Southern Pacific Railroad some nine years later. A mystery/suspense novel, A Strange Confession, was serialised in the Californian in 1880-81, but was never published in book form. His stories were collected in The Ape, the Idiot and Other People in 1897, but he published few stories thereafter. The book is now a much sought-after collectors' item. By 1899 Morrow had begun a school for writers, and in 1901 he produced a pamphlet, The Art of Writing for Publication. Bierce commented that: "it is a pity Morrow teaches others to write badly instead of himself writing well. But I fancy we have no grievance therein, or if we have it is against the pig public, not against Morrow. He would write books, doubtless, if he could afford to, as I would do." Morrow published two romantic adventure novels, A Man; His Mark (1900) and Lentala of the South Seas (1908); an apparently journalistic work called Bohemian Paris of Today, from "notes by Edouard Cucuel", and a short travel booklet, Roads Around Paso Robles (1904).