Today I’m researching yellow journalism for a feature on the press that’s publishing next week. I was supposed to be done with the yellow journalism portion, but I find myself back in its midst today, finding even more goodies. After reading a book review in the Times on The Yellow Kids, a book now sadly out of print, I learned of a pioneer roving reporting by the name of James Creelman, who lived at the turn of the 20th century and met some of the most important people who ever lived, including Leo Tolstoy. In Creelman’s memoir, On the Great Highway, he devotes a whole chapter to “the Count.” Miracle of miracles, the entirety of On the Great Highway is available as an ebook! Here’s an excerpt from the incredibly titled “The Avatar of Count Tolstoy” chapter:
“It was all so strange, — and it was stranger still to an American writer, fresh from hard-headed London, Paris, and New York, — to sit with the great master in this house, whose doors were never closed to the hungry or weary, whose table was always spread, whose owner called every wandering pilgrim a brother.
“That night, as I lay in the Count’s little iron cot, among his books, I heard the clock strike twelve, and it would not have surprised me ifthe clock had struck thirteen, so unusual were the ways of that wonderful place.”
