Cabell, James Branch

Cabell, James Branch

(born April 14, 1879, Richmond, Va., U.S.—died May 5, 1958, Richmond) U.S. writer. Cabell attacked American orthodoxies and institutions in his best-known novel, Jurgen (1919), a story replete with sexual symbolism. His other works, many of them allegories set in an imaginary medieval province, include The Cream of the Jest (1917) and The High Place (1923). Though much praised in the 1920s, his mannered style and skeptical view of human experience soon lost favour.

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Cabell, James Branch (1879–1958) writer; born in Richmond, Va. After graduating from the College of William and Mary, he worked as a journalist and as a coal miner. With his first novel, The Eagle's Shadow (1904), this Virginia-based author launched a prolific literary career producing works ranging from historical short stories to Virginia genealogy. He was known chiefly for his polished romances set in a mythical French province, Poictesme (18 vols. 1913–29), intended as allegories of the modern world. The best known of the series, Jurgen (1919), was originally suppressed as being immoral. Highly admired by literary types in his day, Cabell's work failed to speak to later generations.