Henry Van Dyke Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Henry Van Dyke

From the opening pages of his first novel, Henry Van Dyke has shown that he is a masterful novelist, an "original" artist with his own voice, his own style, his "language couched in wit and eloquence." One critic has stated that Van Dyke "has refined the genius inherent" in his earlier novels. He demands of himself that he "write well with clarity while conveying complex ideas and maintaining a colloquial feel." For some readers he might not be militant enough, but Van Dyke does not believe that a novel should be a tract, a sermon in disguise. He has a remarkable ear for dialogue, the apt phrase--whether the speaker is erudite, a snob and social climber, a con-artist, an English lord, or a ghetto black. In his three novels he has produced memorable characters, both blacks and whites, some formally educated and others street-wise; in well-constructed scenes, he has revealed many facets of the human comedy, cutting "back cleanly through race antagonisms, religious differences, superficial moralities and other page-one causes to people themselves." While he entertains and amuses his readers, Van Dyke also makes them look anew at the world around them.

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