JOHN FOX, JR.

by George Brosi

John William Fox, Jr., was born on December 16, 1862, at Stony Point in the heart of the flat and prosperous Bluegrass farm country of Kentucky. The first John Fox had come to Virginia in 1649, and John Fox, Jr.'s great-great-grandmother had brought seven children to Kentucky along the Wilderness Road in 1790. John Fox, Jr.'s father ran the Stony Point Academy and tutored his son until he entered Transylvania College at the age of fifteen. After two years there, John Fox, Jr., entered Harvard University, graduating cum laude in 1883 as the youngest member of his class. He tried Columbia University Law School and brief jobs for New York newspapers, but in February, 1885, an illness forced him to come home. It was then that he visited his brother James, an engineer who had interests in coal mines near Jellico on the Tennessee line. The rest of his life, John Fox, Jr., was involved in family business speculations, moving in 1890 to Big Stone Gap, Virginia.

At the time John Fox, Jr. lived in Big Stone Gap, speculators were promoting it as a sophisticated future city destined to become greater than Pittsburgh. Fox's business ventures, his construction of a fabulous home modeled after Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford, and his mingling with the rich and famous-- including a White House reading presided over by Theodore Roosevelt-- helped fuel Big Stone Gap's pretensions. Indeed, Fox traveled widely in international circles, serving as a war correspondent in Cuba in 1898 and in the Orient in 1904. It was while living in Big Stone Gap as a single man that John Fox, Jr., made his greatest contribution to American Literature. He began his career with short stories and then moved on to novellas. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, his best-known and best-selling book, is a Civil War novel whose protagonist is torn between his mountain up-bringing and his bluegrass roots. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine was also very successful, and even more accepted among literary critics. It deals with the positive and negative impacts of progress upon the mountain culture.

In 1908 Fox married Fritze Scheff, the flamboyant Austrian prima donna. She brought her fabulous wardrobe-- reputedly including over one hundred pairs of shoes-- and her glittering lifestyle to Big Stone Gap. But throughout the five years of their marriage-- they were divorced in 1913-- Fox published not a single book. In fact, the two books written subsequently received little popular or critical recognition. In 1919 Fox was stricken with pneumonia on a fishing trip near Norton, Virginia. He died on July 8, in a Knoxville hospital.

John Fox, Jr. made a tremendous contribution to Appalachian Literature. His best-selling novels put the region on the map. His exciting plots and colorful characters combined to give an over-drawn, but sympathetic, view of the hill country to the world.

by George Brosi

A Cumberland Vendetta and Other Stories. New York: Harpers, 1895. Fox's first short story collection.

Hell-Fer-Sartain and Other Stories. New York: Harpers, 1897. A 221-page collection. The title story is named for a watershed in Southern Leslie County.

The Kentuckians. New York: Harpers, 1897. Fox's first published novel, 227 pages. Boone Stallard is the protagonist.

A Mountain Europa. New York: Harpers, 1899. A novella based upon Fox's first published story.

Crittenden. New York: Scribners, 1900. This 258-page novel features a Northern Kentucky setting, closer to the Bluegrass than the Mountains.

Blue-Grass and Rhododendron. New York: Scribner's, 1901. A 294-page collection of non-fiction essays.

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. New York: Scribner's, 1903. A 322-page Civil War novel, Fox's best-known and best-selling book.

Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories. New York: Scribner's, 1904. A 234-page collection of stories. "Lonesome" is the name of an Eastern Kentucky Creek.

Following the Sun Flag: A Vain Pursuit Through Manchuria. New York: Scribner's, 1905. A 189-page narrative of Fox's experience as a correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War.

A Knight of the Cumberland. New York: Scribner's, 1906. A 158-page novella set in the Cumberland Mountains.

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. New York: Scribner's, 1908. Fox's greatest critical success, a 422-page novel of the ambiguity of progress which is surpassed in fame only by The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come.

The Heart of the Hills. New York: Scribner's, 1913. A 396-page novel.

In Happy Valley. New York: Scribner's, 1917. A 229-page collection of stories, the last Fox published in his lifetime.

Erskine Dale, Pioneer. New York: Scribner's, 1920. Fox's last novel, 258 pages.

The Purple Rhododendron. Appalachia, Virginia: Young, 1967. A posthumous short-story collection.