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SIGNATURES
Identified individuals are represented by a biographical sketch, a list of connections to other signatures, and, in most cases, an artifact from the Ransom Centers collections. Help us identify more signatures by submitting your suggested identification.
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THE DOOR
Location on door: front, panel 1
LAURIE YORK ERSKINE
Born in Scotland, the popular boys' novelist and educator Laurie York Erskine (1894-1976) came to the United Sates as a young child. He served for the British in World War I and for the United States in World War II. He is best known for his adventure novels featuring protagonist Douglas Renfew of the Royal Canadian Mounties, the first of which, Renfew of the Royal Mounted, was published in 1922. Several of Erskine's novels and stories, were made into films and radio programs. From 1936-1940, Erskine narrated the Renfew series on CBS radio. In 1925, he co-founded the Solebury School for boys in New Hope, Pennsylvania, which continues to run today as a coeducational college preparatory boarding and day school. Erskine is one of two people to sign the bookshop door twice; the other is Don Marquis.
The dust jacket of the first edition of Laurie York Erskine's The Coming of Cosgrove (New York: Appleton, 1926)
The publisher's advertisement for this book called it "a vigorous novel of the range in which a strong-willed son avenges the persecution of his father."