Diane of the Green Van was awarded the $10,000.00 prize in a novel contest in which over five hundred manuscripts were submitted. $10,000 was real money, back in the day -- pretty darned huge, in fact. The book was made into a silent movie back in 1919, directed by Wallace Worsley, with a script by Thomas J. Geraghty. That's all reason enough for curiosity, but you ought to read this book: the text has a charm all its own.

Author Biography

Leona Dalrymple (1884 - 1968) was an early 20th century American author of novels, short stories and plays. Dalrymple's first publication was a play in 1905; the firm that published it later issued another dozen of her works, mostly written for amateur theatricals. In 1913, Dalrymple won the then very large prize of $10,000 in a literary competition organized by the publisher Reilly & Britton and judged by Ida Tarbell and S.S. McClure. The winning entry was her romance novel Diane of the Green Van, published the following year. A second entry in the competition that was highly rated by the judges was also by Dalrymple; though slated for publication under the title The Nomad, it apparently was never issued, or at least not under that title.