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[image--open book of a manuscript with many handwritten additions and strikeouts] Kenneth Roberts' revisions on the opening page of this copy of the first edition of Arundel. This novel was published in 1930; completely revised in this copy by Kenneth Roberts in 1932; and replated for a new edition in 1933. Every page of the novel contains revisions. Not so many years ago, Kenneth Roberts working on a Boston newspaper, rooming with Olin Downes, now New York Times music critic, on Beacon Hill, and occasionally knocking off an interview with some famous author or other who came to town to autograph his books and let people look at him. Next Friday and Saturday, Roberts will play the role of the literary lion, doubtless with his tongue in his cheek, if that is zoologically possible. On Friday he will visit Boston bookshops and on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 he will be delighted to write his name in the fly-leaf of "Arundel, "Rabble In Arms," or whichever of his books you prefer, in the book department of Jordan Marsh Company. Kenneth Roberts spends half his time in a Spanish stable, and the rest of the time in a half-baked palace. That's what he calls them. The Spanish stable is in Kennebunk, Me.; the half-baked palace In Italy. When he decided to build a workshop across the dirt road from his Kennebunk home, he called in Booth Tarkington, Samuel Blythe, and other writing friends. They drew up plans. The result was a low-lying, wheelbarrow-blue sort of barn, with a stable yard of realistic appearance. There is a huge study with a fireplace at one end and a balcony at the other, and there is a kennel for the Roberts coupe. Now he is about to leave for his Italian palace, for he is the only New Englander we know of who commutes between Maine and Italy. The period to which Mr. Roberts has devoted his talents as historical novelist is bound up with his own family history. Kenneth Roberts was born Dec. 8, 1885, at Kennebunk, Me. From this town two of his ancestors went as captains in the continental army, and another sailed as a privateer captain in the war of 1812, to be captured and sent to Dartmoor prison. One of his forebears was a member of the secret expedition led by Benedict Arnold against Quebec. Roberts, as a boy, hunted and fished along Arnold's route to Quebec and came to know the Arundel country intimately. KNOWS THE COUNTRY [bold font] Life is soft today, to be sure, and the demands upon most men are not of a nature to test manhood as it was once challenged daily. But those who know Kenneth Roberts know his old-time fondness for the Maine trails, the lakes, fishing and outdoor life, know of his early experience abroad amid the turmoil of war and post-war conditions, can see in him easily enough of those same sturdy qualities that distinguish the heroes of "Arundel, Lively Lady" and his other novels. He could not be otherwise for in his veins flows the blood of those first Maine settlers, who lived and died in the midst of danger, adventure and toil. No ancestor worshipper, he has a deep admiration and affection for his so-human forebears, chuckling when he recalls their vices and departures from the straight and narrow, laughing at the discomfiture of those who place the forebears on a gilded pedestal, but speaking with reverence of their gallantry, courage and forbearance. It is this estimation of his ancestors, this human interpretation of the qualities of men that has apparently driven Kenneth Roberts in his so real stories of pioneer and colonial times. Had Kenneth Roberts lived in the days of the Nasons he would doubtless have been among those who shouldered a musket and went off with Arnold, or with one of the regiments at Ticonderoga; earlier he would have gone to Louisburg or later, fought aboard a defiant privateer. He would have been as much at home in the rough hostelries of the country with their supplies of buttered rum and hospitality as he would in the redman's forests, or on new world seas below bellowing canvas.

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