The Oldest Thing I Own

It’s small, it’s blue, and it’s more than 110 years old. It’s a book by Edward P. Roe entitled “The Hornet’s Nest – A Story of Love and War” (published by Dodd, Mead, and Company). On its copyright page it indicates the years of copyright as:

Copyright, 1886,

By E. P. Roe.

Copyright 1887, 1892,

By Dodd, Mead and Company

All rights reserved.

It’s quite easy for me to embrace fully the idea that the E. P. Roe who wrote this book was quite popular during his time since almost all the websites that presented something about him said the same thing. One website (http://www.dallas.net/~silvrdal/roe.html) even claims that he is “America’s greatest popular author” (whatever that means). A few of the websites dedicated to Roe also have lists of his works which number to more than 20.

But in all my research about Roe and “The Hornets Nest”, I noticed something really strange. Except for Amazon.com selling a recent reprint copy of the book, none of the websites that tell something of Roe ever mention about “The Hornets Nest”… not even in the lists of his works.

There had been instances in the past when I thought that the E. P. Roe who wrote this book was not the one I’ve been reading so much about. But, a closer examination of the book revealed a line on the title page that says “Author of ‘Barriers Burned Away’” which, by the way, was the book that “made Roe famous”. With that, there’s no doubt at all that the E. P. Roe who wrote this is one and the same.

Maybe there’s someone out there who can shed some light on this.