Harry Leon Wilson

Harry Leon Wilson, an American novelist and dramatist, is best known for his novels Ruggles of Red Gap and Merton of the Movies. Bunker Bean, another of his works, contributed to the popularity of the term "flapper". Harry Leon Wilson was born in Oregon, Illinois, to Samuel and Adeline. His father was a newspaper publisher, so Harry learnt to set type at a young age. He attended public schools and enjoyed reading Bret Harte and Mark Twain. He acquired shorthand and secretarial abilities. Wilson...See more

Harry Leon Wilson, an American novelist and dramatist, is best known for his novels Ruggles of Red Gap and Merton of the Movies. Bunker Bean, another of his works, contributed to the popularity of the term "flapper". Harry Leon Wilson was born in Oregon, Illinois, to Samuel and Adeline. His father was a newspaper publisher, so Harry learnt to set type at a young age. He attended public schools and enjoyed reading Bret Harte and Mark Twain. He acquired shorthand and secretarial abilities. Wilson left his family at the age of 16 and worked as a stenographer for the Union Pacific Railroad in Topeka, Kansas, Omaha, Nebraska, and Denver, Colorado before moving to California in 1887. Puck magazine approved Wilson's article "The Elusive Dollar Bill" in December of 1886. He continued to contribute to Puck, eventually becoming assistant editor in 1892. Henry Cuyler Bunner died in 1896, and Wilson took over as editor. Wilbertine Nesselrode Teters Worden was Wilson's first wife, and they married in 1898. The marriage terminated in divorce in 1900. In 1902, he married Rose Cecil O'Neill Latham. O'Neill and Wilson worked together at Puck, and she illustrated four of his novels. They separated in 1907. Wilson's black and white pit bull dog, Sprangle, was the inspiration for Rose O'Neill's biscuit porcelain Kewpie dog figure, known as the "Kewpiedoodle dog" and sold internationally by importer George Borgfeldt. See less