Robert W Chambers epub The Tracer of Lost Persons (Illustrated Edition)

Robert William Chambers (1865-1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his collection of connected stories The King in Yellow (1895), which has been described as one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction. Born in Brooklyn, New York, at around the age of 20 he entered the Art Students' League alongside fellow student Charles Dana Gibson, and from 1886-93 studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Academie Julian in Paris. On his return to New York he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth and Vogue magazines, but then devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel In the Quarter in 1894. He wrote in several genres, including both historical and contemporary fiction, and returned to the weird and supernatural in further short story collections, though the latter did not achieve the level of success of The King in Yellow. During WWI he turned to adventure and war stories but after 1924 devoted himself solely to historical novels. The Tracer of Lost Persons (1906) is an episodic novel featuring Westrel Keen (The Tracer) who runs an agency aimed at fulfilling his clients' dreams by tracking down an elusive figure with whom they yearn to be reunited, be it a girl glimpsed once on a train, or an ancient Egyptian danciing girl to be brought to life. Mr Keen's formidable powers of detection and uncanny sense for solving even the strangest disappearances are guaranteed to get results, however bizarre the circumstances. The stories were first written for The Saturday Evening Post before being collected and published in book form, and were later adapted into one of radio's longest running and most popular shows, airing from 1937-55. This edition includes four full-page illustrations by Edmund Frederick.