Robert Cortes Holliday

Robert Cortes Holliday (July 18, 1880 – January 1, 1947) was an American writer and literary editor.

Biography

He was born on July 18, 1880 in Indianapolis, Indiana and moved to New York to study at the Art Students' League and worked briefly as an illustrator for periodicals.

He then sold books, worked as a librarian, and became a literary editor at the New York Tribune, Doubleday, Page & Co., and George H. Doran & Co. before taking an editorial position with The Bookman, serving as its chief editor from 1919 to 1920. After he left The Bookman in 1923, Holliday continued his criticism, worked for brief stints in advertising, and in 1926 became an instructor on writing for publication. Holliday also published fifteen books, including The Walking-Stick Papers (1918), Men and Books and Cities (1920), Literary Lanes and Other Byways (1925), as well as volumes on Booth Tarkington and poet Joyce Kilmer (for whom he served as literary executor).

He died on January 1, 1947 in Manhattan, New York City of heart disease.

Legacy

Writer and friend, Christopher Morley, wrote of Holliday: "[he] has the genuine gift of the personal essay, mellow, fluent, and pleasantly eccentric."