Details

Title

The Pit

Sub Title

A Story of Chicago

Author

Norris, Frank

Publisher

Doubleday, Page &Co

Place of Publication

New York

Collection

L.M. Montgomery Institute.

Note

In July 19, 1903, just after a visitor left the Macneill house, Montgomery spent an afternoon reading. She selected three new titles, from different genres and styles. “I read ‘The Virginian,’ ‘Darrell of the Blessed Isles’ and ‘The Pit.’ The Virginian was very good and had an ending so idyllic that it hurt. The perfect happiness of Mollie and her Virginian was really insulting. Darrell rather bored me. The Pit was strong and exciting, but brutal and rather crude of thought. But it is a rank waste of time to be criticizing the books of the day. They amuse and pass time pleasantly and that is all that is really expected of them. They are not under any obligation of immortality” (‘The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Vol. II, pp 77-78). ‘Darrell’ is a coming of age story about a boy raised in the country (author Irving Bacheller was a mentor to Stephen Crane, author of the ‘Red Badge of Courage’.). ‘The Virginian’ is a western (see the copy on the Bookshelf here). ‘The Pit’, however, is another kind of story entirely. It is a novel set in the hectic, and corrupt, world of wheat speculation at the Chicago Board of Trade, where speculators and businessmen try to make (or sidestep) trade deals. The book is actually the second in Norris’ planned trilogy of texts intended to follow (roughly) the journey of a shaft of wheat, through the market, and into a European loaf of bread, but Norris died before completing the last book. Though perhaps not remembered widely today--Montgomery was right about its immortality--the book was a bestseller that inspired a silent film adaptation and even a card game that was released in 1904 (with celebratory re-releases in 1964 and 2004).

Genre

novel

Type of Item

contemporaneous