In a conversation with the protagonist Amory Blaine in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise" (1920), Tom D'Invilliers "indulge[s] in the slaughter of American literature", in a rant about successful writers of the 1910s: Edna Ferber, Gouverneur Morris, Fannie Hurst (misspelled as Fanny), Mary Roberts Rinehart, Harold Bell Wright, Zane Grey, Rupert Hughes, Ernest Poole, and Dorothy Canfield. Hurst's name caught my attention most here, as this semester I am teaching her "Imitation of Life" (1933) alongside Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" (1925). But of the novelists Tom "slaughters", only Zane Grey, famous for his Westerns (though I've never read any of them), has been a well-known name in my lifetime. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 18 October 2026)

“My God! Look at them, look at them—Edna Ferber, Gouverneur Morris, Fanny Hurst, Mary Roberts Rinehart—not producing among 'em one story or novel that will last ten years. This man Cobb—I don't tink he's either clever or amusing—and what's more, I don't think very many people do, except the editors. He's just groggy with advertising. And—oh Harold Bell Wright oh Zane Grey—"
"They try."
"No, they don't even try. Some of them can write, but they won't sit down and do one honest novel. Most of them can't write, I'll admit. I believe Rupert Hughes tries to give a real, comprehensive picture of American life, but his style and perspective are barbarous. Ernest Poole and Dorothy Canfield try but they're hindered by their absolute lack of any sense of humor; but at least they crowd their work instead of spreading it thin. Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, "This Side of Paradise" (1920)