American drama critic George Jean Nathan once expressed a hope in a "Suggestion for a Biography" for The American Mercury: "A book I should like to read--and doubtless there are thousands of ex-youngsters of the 1800's and early 1890's who have the same feeling about it as I have--would be a biography, or better still an autobiography, if he is still living, of the man known as Burt Standish, author of the famous Frank Merriwell literature...