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DEATH OF GILBERT PATTEN

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Camden Author Made Famous By the Authorship of the "Frank Merriwell' Novels

[Photograph of Gilbert Patten]

Gilbert Patten, Camden author who died at the home of his son in Vista, Calif. Tuesday.

Jan 20, 1945

Gilbert Patten, 78, who wrote under the pen name of Burt L. Standish in producing the popular "Frank Merriwell" stories, died in his sleep Tuesday in the home of his son, Harvan Barr Patten, in suburban Vista, Calif.

Gilbert Patten was one of the most prolific writers of dime novel fiction in the world. His tremendous popular "Frank Merriwell" stories, commencing in 1896 and continuing 17 years, totalled more than 25,000,000 words. His life-time production was estimated at 40,000,000 words.

His melodramatic Merriwell stories, appearing in Tip Top Weekly, earned a fortune for his publishers (Street & Smith). He sensed the waning public pulse for that type of fiction in 1912 and later was active in its transition into the "pulp" magazine of today.

Born in Corinna, Me., he was Christened George William Patten and grew rapidly into a gangling six-foot, 115-pound boy at 14. The nickname "Willie" in early youth riled him so he dropped the "William" and changed "George" to "Gilbert" in an effort, he said, to get away from his record of dime novel authorship under this real name.

"It didn't work," he said ruerully.

He ran away from his home at 16 because of his aversion to school and his father's ultimatum: "Study or go to work." Earning 90 cents a day in a machine shop, he learned that had labor was the only resource of the unskilled. Determined to be an author, he went home.

He received $6 for both of his first efforts, short stories entitled "A Bad Man" and "The Pride of Sandy Flat." At 19 he sold "The Diamond Sport" for $50. A second novel sold for $75, a third for $100, and his career had started.

A friend and schoolmate, Alice Gardiner, became his critic and copyist, contributing to his early success. She married Patten in 1886, the first of his three marital ventures. They were divorced in 1898. Patten and his second wife, Mary Nunn, were married in 1900 and divorced in 1916. In 1918 he married Carol Kramer of New York, who died in 1939.

Patten divided most of his time for a half century at his home "Overrocks" in Canden, where he spent his Summers, and in New York, his winter domicile.

Patten's pseudonym. Burt L. Standish, was the result, he said, of his love of Longfellow's "The Courtship of Miles Standish." The name of his story hero, "Frank Merriwell," was devised thus:

"I took the three qualities I most wanted him to embody—frank and merry in nature and well in body and mind—and made the name Frank Merriwell," he said.

When "Frank Merriwell' graduated from Yale his fiction brother, "Dick Merriwell," carried on about 1907, followed by "Frank Merriwell,Jr.," who saw the series decline and fall.

Patten was employed for a time on the "Eastern State," a Dexter, Me., newspaper, and his reading taste for "thrillers" waned. He ventured into the weekly newspaper publishing business in 1888 with the "Corinna Owl," but he sold it shortly afterward. Moving to Camden, Patten continued to write and in Summer devoted himself to managing a professional baseball team. Among his players was Bill Carrigan, late to become famous with the Boston Red Sox, who received $12 a week and board for his services.

Opportunity came when Patten, at the age of 30, was offered a chance to write "on approval" for Tip Top Weekly "The Boy From the West." It began a period of 20 years of continuous fiction writing.

"Frank Merriwell, or First Days at Fardale," came off the presses in April, 1896, and Patten received a contract for three years at $50 a week. It drove him to night and day efforts, for he required time for research as well as writing. Often he finished an installment barely in time to reach the presses.

Renewal of his contract came in 1899 and an advance to $60 for each installment of the Merriwell series. In the last four years Patten did the actual writing of them, he recasion he wanted a week off, he ceived $150 a week. When on oc-stepped' up his output. At one time he wrote 50,000 words in a week—his best record.

When Patten dropped the writing of the Merriwell series other writers kept the series alive until 1916.

Meanwhile, Patten took the editorship of Top Notch, first of the sport story pulp magazines of today, and wrote much of its material himself. After seven issues he resigned to become its chief contributor.

noftllr. Many of th hlch bOr9 • titJea as "Doulllc ban: the Da.sta.rd." were written shonJ¥ after he came to Camden abou 1888. ln betwe n tftrlllers, he managed a semi-pro baseball team here.

Pa tten's literary apprenticeship s on the ol " li'.astern State, a weekly newsimper ?Ubllih a.t De1:ter, and his own weekly, "The Corinna Owl," which he edited and published in his home t.own. For 30 years after he had won fame in New York with his Merriwell stories, Patten continued to return to Camden as a summer resident of "Overocks," a substantial, attractive hQme on the shore of Penob6cot Bay.

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