American Novelist Lost

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

American Novelist Lost is an obituary published in The Leeds Mercury on 18 april 1912.

Jacques Futrelle was sometimes called "The American Conan Doyle".


American Novelist Lost

The Leeds Mercury
(18 april 1912, p. 3)

Jacques Futrelle, the American novelist, who is believed to be among the lost, has been described as the American Conan Doyle. He was the author of "The Professor on the Case" and "The Thinking Machine," and had finished a new series or stories during his visit to this country. His wife, who accompanied him on the voyage, is also a successful novelist. A pathetic story is told of Mr. Futrelle by his literary agent, Mr. Hughes Massie, of London. Mr. Futrelle had booked his passage to New York, but turned homesick, and when paying a visit to Mr. Massie on April 3rd expressed a desire to return at an earlier date.

Mr. Massie wanted him to be present at the Savage Club on Saturday night for one of the famous evenings, but finding the American impervious to the most urgent invitation, suggested that he should leave on Saturday, April 6th. This idea appealed to Mr. Futrelle, and Mr. Massie departed for a holiday in Devonshire under the impression that his guest would leave on the day proposed. But unfortunately. that could not be managed, and so Mr. and Mrs. Futrelle had to take their passage in the ill-fated Titanic.