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: Does anyone read Allen these days? It surely doesn't look that way. A pity, too. He was no "new Hawthorne" as some late-19th c. literary critics thought, but he's at least worth reading. William Bottorff -- in his Twayne Series study of Allen -- had it about right when he called JLA a "minor master." : Anyway, _The Choir Invisible_, while (once) well known, is not one of JLA's best efforts. Check out _The Bride of the Mistletoe_ -- an odd but subtle work steeped in Frazer's _The Golden Bough_. This is from JLA's second period -- a time when he was a lot less "local-colorish" and a lot more experimental (and probably a bit reduced in income). His best first period work is _Summer in Arcady_ (or so I think). It was quite controversial when it came out (in 1896, if memory serves), because of supposedly "frank" passages about sex and sexual desire. (This was fin-de-siècle America, mind you -- so don't expect anything too risqué). Also, from this period is _A Kentucky Cardinal_, a very charming -- very delicately wrought -- though not exceedingly profound little novel. Still worth a quick reading, though; for we all need a holiday from the weighty and profound -- if only once in a blue moon. : I'd be happy to hear from other Allen readers out there.

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