The Ape, the Idiot & Other People

William Chambers Morrow (1854-1923) was an American writer, now noted mainly for his short stories of horror and suspense. He is probably best known for the much-anthologised story His Unconquerable Enemy (1889). He moved to California in 1879 and began selling stories to the Argonaut. His first novel was Blood-Money (1882). A Strange Confession, was serialised in the Californian in 1880-81, but was never published in book form. His stories were collected in The Ape, the Idiot and Other People in 1897, but he published few stories thereafter. By 1899 Morrow had begun a school for writers, and in 1901 he produced a pamphlet, The Art of Writing for Publication. Morrow published two romantic adventure novels, A Man: His Mark (1900) and Lentala of the South Seas (1908). He also published a journalistic work called Bohemian Paris of Today and a short travel booklet, Roads Around Paso Robles (1904).