William Allen White was born in Emporia, Kansas, and he died there on Kansas Day nearly seventy-six years later. This fact is worth noting because for fifty years "The Sage of Emporia" had enjoyed a three-pronged career and a national reputation, yet he had remained a small-town Kansan. Although most biographers focus on White's journalism and politics, he wrote short stories and novels as well, in a style distinct from his nonfiction. It is this unusual combination of journalism and literature, each colored by his political interests, that makes William Allen White a significant figure in twentieth-century American literature.

White grew up in El Dorado, Kansas, a frontier town. His father was a doctor and a storekeeper, and active in Democratic politics in a fiercely Republican state. His mother was a strong-willed Republican. White attributed his ability to see all sides of an issue to his exposure to...