Violet M. Methley (1882-1953)

Author, Playwright
Born January 1882, Seal, Sevenoaks, Kent, England
Died 1953, London, England

Violet Mary Methley was a prolific author of short stories and novels for children and adults. She specialized in stories for girls, and she may have spent time in Australia, as many of her books are set on that continent. She was born in January 1882 in Seal, Sevenoaks, Kent, England. Little is known of her life except for her credits. A list of her genre stories from The Internet Speculative Fiction Database leads to an interesting discovery. First the list:

Genre Short Stories by Violet M. Methley

• "The Damned Spot" in Truth (July, 21, 1921)
• "'Dusty Death'" in Truth (Nov. 16, 1921)
• "Dread at Darracombe" in Weird Tales (Apr. 1930)
• "The Milk Carts" in Weird Tales (Mar. 1932)

The first two stories on that list originally appeared in the British magazine Truth. They were reprinted in 2004 in an anthology called The Last "Queer Stories from Truth", issued by Ash-Tree Press. According to the website of that press:

For most of its life, the weekly publication Truth--which was more generally concerned with politics, finance, and general muck-raking [sic]--ran, in each issue, a short fiction feature called 'Queer Story.' After publication of a number of stories, they were gathered and published as anthologies titled Queer Stories from 'Truth.' The short stories were odd, peculiar, strange, macabre, weird, and at times outright supernatural, and some illustrious names contributed weird tales to the forum, including H. R. Wakefield (whose 'Annyversry' is an early version of the tale later published as 'The Fire-Watcher's Story'), A. B. Cox, and Rosemary Timperley.

Truth was founded in 1877 by Henry (also called Henri) Labouchère (1831-1912). (1) The website Metapedia describes it as a "nationalist" magazine, but that seems to have been true only in later years. Truth ceased publication in 1957. In between, as the website of Ash-Tree Press points out, Truth published anthologies of its "queer stories," what we would call, I suppose, weird stories or weird fiction. What may have been the first anthology was announced in 1886. The twenty-first series was published in 1915. So the series wasn't annual. In any case, the "queer story," a term that would never be used in that context today, would appear to have been a common type in the late 1800s and may very well have been somewhere in the family tree of weird fiction in general and Weird Tales in particular. If that's true, then I think there is some call for further research.

Getting back to Violet M. Methley, her books include the following:

Books by Violet M. Methley
An Incomplete List

• Camille Desmoulins: A Biography (1914)
• Miss Quixote (1916)
• The Lodestone (1914)
• The Padre of the Movies (1925)
• The Bunyip Patrol: The Story of an Australian Girls' School (1926)
• The Husband-Woman (1926)
• The Girls at Sandilands (1934)
• The Queer Island (1934)
• Seeing the Empire: The Adventurous Tour of Steven and Sallie (1935)
• The Last Enemy (1936)
• Cockie & Co. and Their Adventures (1937)
• Dragon Island: An Adventure Story for Girls (1938)
• Vackies (1941)
• Great Galleon (1942)
• Georgie and the Dragon (1950)
• Armada, Ahoy! (1953)
• Fourteen Fourteens (1954)
• A Daughter of the Legion
• Mystery Camp
• Spectre Jungle
• Three for Luck

She also wrote at least one work for the stage, "Freckles: A Sketch for Four Girls" (1922). And that is all I know of her.

Violet Methley died in London in 1953.

Violet M. Methley's Stories in Weird Tales
"Dread at Darracombe" (Apr. 1930)
"The Milk Carts" (Mar. 1932)

Further Reading

There isn't much on Violet M. Methley on the Internet. I have assembled the information I have here from many different sources, none of which offers very much about her. 

Note

(1) Cynic, misanthrope, radical contrarian, wealthy banker (he left an estate of £2,000,000 or $10,000,000), wide-ranging diplomat, and anti-imperialist Member of Parliament, Henry or Henri Labouchère, nicknamed "Labby," was described thusly: "He has always been in the opposition, is there still, and will doubtless die with a protest on his lips." (Current Opinion, 1892, Vol. 11, p. 227.) His live-in paramour was the actress Henrietta Hodson, also erroneously called Henrietta Hobson or Hodgson, whom he married in 1880 after her husband, the aptly named Mr. Pigeon, died. Labouchère treated her well after her husband had treated her so badly. In later years they lived in Labouchère's Florentine "Villa Christina." Henrietta died on October 30, 1910, in Florence. Labouchère followed her to the grave on January 15, 1912. By the way, Henrietta's sister, Georgiana Hodson, was also an actress. By the way also, Labouchère was responsible for the law under which Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was prosecuted. I'll avoid the obvious pun about queer stories.

Queer Stories of the War and Others from Truth, the twenty-first in the series and published in 1915.

Original text copyright 2016, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Frank Owen's Books

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant (1999) describes Frank Owen as follows:

US author and editor, husband of Ethel Owen. He wrote 10 mildly salacious novels in the 1930s as Roswell Williams, sometimes listed erroneously as his real name. FO is best-know for mannered tales of the Orient. (p. 739)

According to that source, his works fall into the category of fantasy and fable, some with supernatural elements. The Encyclopedia is right in saying that Owen's real name was not Roswell Williams but wrong in saying Ethel Owen was his wife. She was in fact his older sister. Following is an incomplete list of Frank Owen's books:

• Coat Tales from the Pockets of the Happy Giant (with Ethel Owen, collection, New York: The Abingdon Press, 1927)
• The Dream Hills of Happy Country (with Ethel Owen, collection, New York: The Abingdon Press, 1928)
• Games in Rhyme (with Ethel Owen, illustrated by M. Farini, New York: C.R. Gibson and Company, 1929)
• The House Mother (New York: Lantern Press, 1929)
• Pale Pink Porcelain (1929)
• The Wind that Tramps the World: Splashes of Chinese Color (collection, New York: Lantern Press, 1929)
• The Purple Sea: More Splashes of Chinese Color (collection, New York: Lantern Press, 1930)
• Wind Blown Stories (with Ethel Owen, collection, illustrated by George T. Tobin, New York: The Abingdon Press, 1930)
• Della Wu, Chinese Courtezan and Other Oriental Love Tales (collection, New York: Lantern Press, 1931)
• Rare Earth (New York: The Lantern Press, 1931)
• The Blue Highway (with Ethel Owen, collection, illustrated by George T. Tobin, The Abingdon Press, 1932)
• Madonna of the Damned (as by Roswell Williams, 1935)
• Lovers of Lo Fab (as by Roswell Williams, 1935 or 1936)
• Between the Covers (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1938)*
• A Husband for Kutani (collection, New York: Lee Furman, 1938)
• The Scarlet Hill (New York: Carlyle House, 1941)
• Morris the Midget Moose (children's book, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1945)*
• The Porcelain Magician: A Collection of Oriental Fantasies (collection, illustrated by Frances E. Dunn, New York: Gnome Press, 1948)

*I can't be sure that these books were by our Frank Owen, who should not be confused with the Welsh military officer, author, and newspaperman, nor with the American cartoonist (1907-1971) of the same name.

In addition to writing books, Frank Owen was an editor. Many of these books are from the Teen-Age Library series published by Lantern Press and/or Grosset and Dunlap. The following list may or may not be complete:

• The Bedside Bonanza (New York: Frederick Fell Company, 1944)
• Murder for Millions: A Harvest of Horror and Homicide (New York: Frederick Fell Company, 1946)
• Teen-Age Companion (illustrated by Carl Cobbledick, 1946)
• Fireside Mystery Book (New York: Lantern Press, 1947)
• Teen-Age Baseball Stories (1947)
• Teen-Age Outdoor Stories (1947)
• Teen-Age Sports Stories (1947)
• Teen-Age Basketball Stories (1948)
• Teen-Age Football Stories (1948)
• Teen-Age Mystery Stories (illustrated by Carl Cobbledick, New York: Lantern Press, 1948)
• Teen-Age Stories of Action (1948)
• Teen-Age Winter Sports Stories (1949)
• Teen-Age Victory Parade (1950)
• Teen-Age Winter Sports Stories (Grosset Dunlap, 1950)
• Baseball Stories (paperback, Lantern Press, 1964)

Ethel Owen, Frank Owen's sister and sometime co-author, was born in August 1890 in New York, probably in Brooklyn. In addition to writing books with her younger brother, Ethel also wrote books on her own, many about parties for young people, some about more adult topics. Here is a partial list:

• A Book of Original Parties (1925)
• Parties That Are Different (1926)
• The Pumpkin People (1927)
• Hallowe'en Tales and Games (illustrated by Eleanore Mineah Hubbard, Chicago: A. Whitman and Company, 1928)
• Wish for Tomorrow (New York: Robert Speller Publishing Corp, 1936)
• The Abingdon Party Book (1937)
• Romance in the Rain (New York: Green Circle Books, 1937)
• Some One Shall Love Me (New York: Lee Furman, 1939)
• Unwilling Bride (Astro Books #9, 1948)
• Confessions of a Good-Time Girl (Astro Books #10, 1948)
• A Year of Recreation

Ethel Owen died on November 17, 1946, at age fifty-six. Her obituary--an incomplete obituary taken from the online archive of the New York Times--from November 18, 1946:

OWEN, Ethel, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 1946, devoted sister of Frank Owen, Mrs. Andrew Rankine and Mrs. Paul F. Pinkham. Service at her residence, 204 Weirfield St., Brooklyn . . . .

Here are some other sources from the Times on the Owen family. The transcriptions may not be entirely accurate:

Deaths

OWEN, Friday, March 25, 1938, Agnes A., beloved daughter of Henrietta and the late Henry Owen, sister of Margaret, Ethel, Ralph H., and Frank Owen, Mrs. Andrew Rankine and Mrs. Paul F. Pinkham. Services at her residence, 204 Weirfield Ave., Brooklyn. (Mar. 27, 1938)

Wills for Probate

OWEN, AGNES A. (March 25). Estate $4,800 personal. To mother, Henrietta Owen, 204 Weirfield St. Frank Owen, 204 Weirfield St., executor. (Apr. 6, 1938)

And Frank Owen's own obituary:

Frank Owen, Author, 75; Editor of Mystery Books

Frank Owen, an author who also wrote under the pen names Roswell Williams and Richard Kent, died Sunday after a long illness at his home, 21 Adler Place, Brooklyn. He . . . . (Oct. 15, 1968)

So what are we to make of the oeuvre of Frank Owen? He was a very prolific and seemingly reliable author for Weird Tales, yet his stories have very seldom been reprinted during the intervening years. It's true that they appeared in hardbound editions in the 1920s and '30s, even as most of his contemporaries were still hacking their way through the pulp jungle. But most were reprinted for the first and last time more than seventy years ago. Even if your library is well stocked, you might have a hard time coming up with even one of them. According to my recent email correspondent, E. Hoffman Price (another Orientalist) considered Owen "a fine writer," but how are we to know? If nothing else, "The Wind That Tramps the World," Owen's most popular story for Weird Tales, should be generally available. Instead, it has been reprinted only in Weird Tales #3, edited by Lin Carter, from 1981, a book that is hard to come by. (1) Ten authors are ahead of Frank Owen in the number of stories they wrote for Weird Tales. All but Allison V. Harding have had their stories reprinted again and again. (2) Most have their own large following of diehard fans. So what of Frank Owen? Is he a neglected author? Or is there something else going on? These are no mere rhetorical questions. We should know their answer.

Notes

(1) The title by the way is from the poem "Sestina of the Tramp-Royal" by Rudyard Kipling (1896).

(2) Allison V. Harding is a special case. There is reason to believe that stories by that pseudonymous author received special treatment in being published in Weird Tales.

You don't have to take my word for it. Here is an inscription from Ethel Owen:

July 23, 1936
To Frank Owen
My Brother
My Collaborator
My Fellow-Novelist
My Artist
and
A pretty good guy
Ethel Owen

Note: The illustration on the dust jacket of The Purple Sea is initialed "HR." I assume that to have been Hugh Rankin, an illustrator for Weird Tales.

Text copyright 2015, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Katherine Yates (1865-1951)

Née Katherine M. Snyder

Aka E.E. Steven, Katherine P. Mayhew

Author, Publisher, Traveler, Club Woman
Born November 12, 1865, Drumbo, Ontario, Canada
Died October 25, 1951, Los Angeles City or County, California

I first wrote about Katherine Yates on December 13, 2013. I revised my article on January 27, 2016, and now (April 30, 2023) I find it needs a complete overhaul, so:

Katherine Merritte Snyder was born on November 12, 1865, in Drumbo, Ontario, Canada. She was the daughter of Peter M. Snyder (1838-1893) and Julia P. Turner Snyder (1839-1938). Katherine arrived in the United States in 1882. By 1900, she was married and living in Chicago. Her husband was Ralph T. Yates (1856-?), a traveling salesman out of Freeport, Illinois. By Katherine Yates' account, the two were divorced in 1910.  She was living in Chicago when the enumerator of the census came around early that year. By the end of 1910, she had relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii.

Katherine M. Yates was supposed to have had her own publishing company in Chicago, but I haven't found any confirmation of that. Her stories listed in The FictionMags Index make a very short list: "Sallie’s Red Cheek" in Pearson’s Magazine (Sept. 1902) and "Under the Hau Tree" in Weird Tales (Nov. 1925). I have found a couple of other credits for her, "Seventeen and Twenty," a short story serialized in newspapers in 1904, and a story with an unknown title in Mother's Magazine, March 1907. In 1917, a newspaper item announced that her article "Motoring on the Edge of the World" would be published in National Geographic. I don't know whether that ever happened.

The title of Katherine's lone story for Weird Tales, "Under the Hau Tree" (Nov. 1925), refers to a species of hibiscus native to the South Pacific and a part of the flora of Hawaii. The story was reprinted in Magazine of Horror #11 (Nov. 1965) and in the paperback collection The Plague of the Living Dead (1970). 

Katherine M. Yates also wrote books for children. "Chet", from 1909, was illustrated by Harold S. De Lay (1876-1950), who later contributed to Weird Tales as well. Several of her books have titles that are also prepositional phrases. That makes me wonder whether they're related somehow. Katherine's books include:

• What the Pine Tree Heard (1903)
• The Grey Story Book (1904)
• On the Way There (1904)
• Through the Woods (1906)
• By the Roadside (1908)
• Cheery and the Chum, illustrated by Clara Powers Wilson (1908)
• At the Door (1909)
• By the Wayside (1909 or before; 1913)
• "Chet", illustrated by Harold S. De Lay (1909; 1913)
• On the Way There: A Wonder Tale (1909)
• Diary of One Month in Honolulu (1910)
• Along the Trail (1912)
• A Tale of the Rainbow Land (1914)
• From Cell to Sunlight (1915?)
• Up the Sunbeams (1916)
• On the Hill-Top (1919)
• In the Valley (1922)
• Kat and Copy-Cat, a mystery novel as by E.E. Steven (1929)
• The Feather Cloak (1936)
• At the Door
• On the Hill Top

Katherine wrote about "metaphysics" as Katherine P. Mayhew. Again, she used the pen name E.E. Steven for her self-published mystery novel Kat and Copy-Cat (1929). She was the first member of the League of American Pen Woman from Hawaii, and she was in Who's Who in America for 1922-1923. She was active in clubs in Honolulu for many years.

Katherine Yates' grandmother was Marilla (Turner) Marks Hutchins Hills (1807-1901), an author, publisher, and abolitionist. Marilla was from Zorra, Ontario, and attended Oberlin College in Ohio. One of her three marriages was to Reverend David L. Marks (1805-1845) of the Freewill Baptist Church. She had a daughter named Julia Marilla Marks or Julia P. Turner Snyder (1839-1938)--different names, same woman. Judge Edgar Benton Kinkead (1862-1930) of Columbus, originally of Washington County, Ohio, was married to Katherine's sister, Nellie M. Snyder (1862-1947). He was a professor of law at Ohio State University and author of legal textbooks.

I have found some credits for a writer of magazine fiction named Ralph T. Yates. I can't say for sure that he was the husband of Katherine Yates, but the timing is about right. The first three items are from The FictionMags Index. I found the last in my own searches.

• "Jennie's Brother's Story" in The All-Story Magazine (Aug. 1905)
• "The Peculiar Cruise of the Tortoise" in The Argosy (Sept. 1905)
• "Jennie’s Brother and the Dog-Washer" in The All-Story Magazine (June 1906)
• "The Perspicacity of Maud" in Holland's Magazine (Sept. 1905)

Katherine M. Yates, also called Kate, was a world traveler--or maybe some of her travels were just plans and dreams. She applied for passports in order to travel to Tahiti and New Zealand in 1915; Japan, China, and India in 1917; possibly the Philippines in 1919; and Europe and the British Isles in 1922. She lived in Honolulu, Hawaii, from 1910 until being evacuated in 1942 because of the threat of Japanese invasion. Once back on the mainland, she lived in Santa Paula, then in Laguna Beach, California. Katherine Merritte Snyder Yates died on October 25, 1951, and was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Katherine Yates' Story in Weird Tales

"Under the Hau Tree" (Nov. 1925)

Further Reading
"Mystery Story About Honolulu" in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 29, 1929, page 35.
"Katherine Yates Dies in California" in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 14, 1951, page 11.

"Mrs. Julia T. Snyder Dies at 99 Of Injury Received in Fall Tuesday" in the Atlanta Constitution, September 15, 1938, page 8.

Text copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

More Books by Elliott O'Donnell

Three older editions of books by Elliott O'Donnell and one newer edition. The design on the earlier editions is more appealing in my mind, but even the cover of Strange Disappearances relies on an artist from mid-century, René Magritte (1898-1967), for inspiration.

Caption copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Howard Rockey's Books

Howard Rockey (1886-1934) wrote at least sixteen novels between 1924 and 1934. The Other Woman's Way was his eleventh; Love, Honor and Deceive! was his last. That means the list below doesn't add up quite right. In any case, this is as good a list as any I know of. By the way, Howard Rockey collaborated with Abraham Loew Furman, who alone or with Rockey wrote under the pseudonym Howard Buck. Furman was a lawyer, editor of children's books and anthologies, and manager of Amour Press. His anthologies include Suspense Stories, Teenage Outer Space Stories, and The Mystery Companion: 14 Tales of Terror and Suspense (1943). Among the contributors to that last title were Edgar Wallace, Vincent Starrett, Geoffrey Homes, Robert Bloch, and Cornell Woolrich. Starrett and Bloch also contributed to Weird Tales. All this goes to show that if you look long enough, everything turns into a circle.

This Woman (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1924) frontispiece by P.J. Monahan

All That I Want (ca. 1925) as by Ronald Bryce, frontispiece by George W. Gage

Daughters of Luxury (1925) frontispiece by Miriam Seiss

Honeymoon's End (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1926)

Paradox (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Company, 1926)

Limelight (1927)

The Test (New York: Macrae Smith Company, 1927)

This Thing Called Freedom (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1932)

The Other Woman's Way (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1932) 11th novel

Greater Love Hath No Woman (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1932)

Shattered Dreams, A Love Romance (1933)
Let's Have a Baby with Abraham L. Furman, as by Howard Buck, (1934)

Love, Honor and Deceive! (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1934)

Masked Longing (1960)

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for the tip on the pseudonym Howard Buck.
Text copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Elliott O'Donnell's Books

Elliott O'Donnell (1872-1965) was a very prolific writer on ghosts, haunted houses, spiritualism, cults, and other weird and paranormal subjects. Since 1904, his work has appeared in hardback, paperback, and now electronic formats. A complete bibliography of his works may prove elusive, but I have made a start here. This list is by no means complete and may not be entirely accurate. The core of it comes from Wikipedia. If you have corrections or additions, please submit them as a comment or by email. Books listed as anthologies include one or more works by O'Donnell.

• For Satan's Sake (1904)
• Unknown Depths (1905)
• The Banshee (1907)
• Some Haunted Houses (1908)
• Haunted Houses of London (1909)
• Ghostly Phenomena (1910)
• Reminiscences of Mrs. E. M. Ward (1910)
• Byways of Ghost-Land (1911)
• The Meaning of Dreams (1911)
• Scottish Ghost Stories (1911 or 1912)
• The Sorcery Club (1912)
• Werwolves [sic] (1912)
• Animal Ghosts (1913)
• Ghostly Phenomena (1913)
• Haunted Highways and Byways (1914)
• The Irish Abroad (1915)
• Twenty Years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter (1916)
• The Haunted Man (1917)
• Spiritualism Explained (1917)
• Fortunes (1918)
• Haunted Places in England (1919)
• The Menace of Spiritualism (1920)
• More Haunted Houses of London (1920)
• Ghosts, Helpful and Harmful (1924)
• Trial of Kate Webster (1925)
• Strange Disappearances (1927)
• Strange Sea Mysteries (1926 or 1927)
• Confessions of a Ghost Hunter (1928)
• Great Thames Mysteries (1929)
• Famous Curses (1929)
• Fatal Kisses (1929)
• The Boys' Book of Sea Mysteries (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1930)
• Women Bluebeards (1930)
• Rooms of Mystery (London: Philip Allan and Company, 1931)
• Ghosts of London (1932 or 1933)
• The Devil in the Pulpit (1932)
• Family Ghosts (1934)
• Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London (1934 or 1935)
• The Creeps Omnibus (1935)--Anthology
• Spookerisms: Twenty-Five Weird Happenings (1936)
• Haunted Churches (1939)
• Murder at Hide and Seek (1945)
• Ghosts with a Purpose (1952)
• Haunted Britain (1952)
• The Dead Riders (1953, 1967)
• Dangerous Ghosts (1954 or 1955)
• Phantoms of the Night (1956)
• Trees of Ghostly Dread (1958)
• The Midnight Hearse and More Ghost Stories (1959)
• Haunted People (1960)
• Ghosts (1961)
• Shadows of Evil (1963)
• The Dead Riders (1967)
• Casebook of Ghosts (1969)
• Ghosts: Stories of the Supernatural (1969)
• The Screaming Skulls and Other Ghost Stories (1969)
• The Dark Dominion (1970)
• The Hag of the Dribble and Other True Ghosts (1971)
• The Wild Company (1971)--Anthology
• Elliott O'Donnell's Great Ghost Stories (1985)
• Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter
• The Unlucky Theatre
• Werewolves Around the World

An array of covers for Elliott O'Donnell's books. Creeps is an anthology; all others are O'Donnell's work. I don't know the cover artists for any of these books, although it looks like Jan Parker was the artist on Casebook of Ghosts, Volume Two (the man with a head in his hands).

Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Alvin F. Harlow's Books

Alvin Fay Harlow enjoyed a writing career that would make any writer proud: history, folklore, Americana, biography, memoirs, children's books, articles for newspapers, magazines, and encyclopedias, fiction short and long--hundreds of works in all. Following is a list of his books. It may or may not be complete, but you won't find another list like this one on the Internet.

• Old Towpaths: The Story of the American Canal Era (1926)
• Old Postbags: The Story of the Sending of a Letter in Ancient and Modern Times (1928)
• Clowning through Life (1928) with Eddie Foy
• Clark the Magnificent (1930)
• Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street (1931)
• A Vagabond Trouper (1931) with Jefferson De Angelis
• Old Waybills: The Romance of the Express Companies (1934, 1969)
• Schoolhouse in the Foothills (1935 or 1936) with Ella Enslow and Thomas Hart Benton
• Old Wires and New Waves: The History of the Telegraph, Telephone, and Wireless (1936)
• When Horses Pulled Boats: A Story of Early Canals (1936, 1987)
• Murders Not Quite Solved (1938, 1944)
• Paper Chase: The Amenities of Stamp Collecting (1940)
• Schoolmaster of Yesterday: A Three Generations Story, 1820-1919 (1940) with Millard Fillmore Kennedy, illustrated by Howard Simon
• Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus): Plantation Storyteller (1941, 1961, 1964) with W.C. Nims
• Weep No More, My Lady (1942)
• Bret Harte of the Old West (1943, 1968)
• Theodore Roosevelt: Strenuous American (1943, 1947, 1962) illustrated by Oscar Ogg
• Steelways of New England (1946)
• The Road of the Century: The Story of the New York Central (1947)
• The Serene Cincinnatians (1950)
• The Ringlings: Wizards of the Circus (1951, 1968)
• A Treasury of Railroad Folklore: The Stories, Tall Tales, Traditions, Ballads, and Songs of the American Railroad Man, Benjamin A. Botkin, editor (1953)
• Indiana's Canal Heritage (1954)
• Henry Bergh, Founder of the A.S.P.C.A (1957)
• Andrew Carnegie (1959)
• Brass-Pounders: Young Telegraphers of the Civil War (1962)

Thanks to Ruth Dorrel, Archivist, Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana, for further information on Alvin Fay Harlow's books.

Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley