Henry Kitchell Webster

Henry Kitchell Webster (1875–1932) was an American novelist from Evanston, Illinois, who began in collaboration with Samuel Merwin on business novels such as The Short Line War and Calumet K, the latter a story of a grain elevator's construction that Ayn Rand later called her favorite novel. On his own he wrote The Real Adventure, a long study of a marriage, and a number of well-made mysteries, including The Whispering Man and The Corbin Necklace, as well as serials for the big magazines. He stayed in Evanston all his life and was among the Chicago-area writers who gave Midwestern fiction its footing in the early twentieth century.