Anderson, F.I.

The American journalist, F. (Frederick) I. (Irving) Anderson, is one of the most idiosyncratic authors of the early 20th century. His production was small as regards books: it is limited to two non-fiction titles about agriculture and three crime-fiction short-story collections – one of those, The Notorious Sophie Lang (1925), is, however, usually classified as an episodic novel. But while he wrote few books, he wrote all the more short stories. Between 1910 and 1946, Andersson supported himself by writing stories for newspapers and magazines: the total amount is unknown. The quality varies, but he normally showed himself to be an excellent stylist and a sharp satirist who created memorable characters. He played with complicated plot-ideas and contemporary popular literature with great imagination and a lot of humour.