Richard Pike Bissell

“When I was a kid,” writes RICHARD PIKE BISSELL, “I floated down the river twice and bummed the freights home.” Then, after graduating from Phillips Exeter and Harvard, he returned to Iowa and again went on the river. He worked on the Monongahela, on the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Upper and Lower Mississippi, first as deck hand and then as mate and pilot. The story which follows is one of the more striking episodes in his first novel. A Stretch on the River, which will appear as an Atlantic-Little, Brown book. The Atlantic, which published Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, is happy to find a worthy successor in Dick Bissell.

Like Sam Clemens, RICHARD PIKE BISSELL holds a pilot’s license on the Mississippi, has made a living on our inland waterways, and whether as deck hand, mate, or pilot, has seen some amusing and some narrow shaves aboard the river boats and the barges which ply the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Illinois, and the Upper and Lower Mississippi. He won the Atlantic “I Personally ” Award of $1000 with his first narrative, ” The Coal Queen.” He is now finishing his first novel, and we look forward to seeing more of his work in our columns.