Barton Currie

Barton Wood Currie (March 8, 1877 – May 7, 1962) was an American journalist, author, and book collector. Writer of hundreds of articles and stories for publications such as New York Evening World, New York Evening Sun, Harper's Weekly and Good Housekeeping in the early part of the 20th century, Currie went on to become the editor of The Country Gentleman, Ladies Home Journal, and World's Work. He also authored several books. Currie acquired an important collection of material related to Joseph Conrad when that author was out of favor in the 1920s. He graduated from Harvard University in 1899.

Writing career

Currie began his writing career in about 1905 at Joseph Pulitzer's New York Evening World, where he worked under Charles Chapin, the "Rose Man of Sing Sing" who shot and killed his wife. According to James Morris, "At the heart of Chapin's news-gathering operation remained his prize rewrite team. Barton Currie was his star". Albert Payson Terhune said, "He could take a bare handful of semi-statistical notes and turn them, on demand, either into a tensely dramatic or roaringly funny column story". One of his most memorable assignments for the New York Evening World was a report on the landing of Admiral Robert Peary in Labrador upon his historic return from the North Pole in 1909.

Currie was a staff reporter for the New York Evening Sun and The New York Times, In 1928 Currie joined Doubleday Doran as editor of World's Work. It was made into the silent film Officer 666 in Australia in 1916, and was also filmed in 1914 and 1920. Currie also wrote The Tractor and Its Influence Upon the Agricultural Implement Industry (1916), reprinting his articles on tractors from his stint on Country Gentlemen.

Other topics in the book included the pros and cons of different methods of collecting, the techniques of various dealers, fellow collectors, highlights from his collection and the effect of the Wall Street crash on the values of collectible books. In 1935 he defined an antiquarian book-seller as someone "who can charge $1,000 for a ten-dollar item and make you feel that he has done you a favor". It was then acquired by Robert H. Taylor and ultimately by Princeton University, who received Taylor's collection.

Death Currie died on 7 May 1962 in Philadelphia

Selected publications Officer 666. H.K. Fly Company, New York, 1912. (With Augustin MacHugh) The Tractor and Its Influence Upon the Agricultural Implement Industry. Curtis Publishing Co., Philadelphia, 1916. Fishers of Books. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1931. Booth Tarkington: A Bibliography. Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, New York, 1932.