EARLY LIFE

"Nothing troubled me very much at the time except my ignorance. Whenever I was alone with pencil and paper I practiced writing--every sort of thing. My pride was aroused; what others knew I wanted to know. It was sheer good luck that threw me with men of cultivation at this formative period."

Born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Meredith Nicholson was the son of Edward and Emily (Meredith) Nicholson. At the age of six, Nicholson and his family moved to Indianapolis where, except for a few years in Denver and service in the diplomatic corps, he lived the rest of his life.

Nicholson attended public schools, but a failing grade in algebra prompted him, age age 16, to quit school and find a job. He worked as an office boy in a print shop, clerked in a drugstore, studied shorthand and became a court reporter and apprenticed in a law office. Nicholson realized, however, that writing was his first love and turned to journalism as a career, working for the Indianapolis Sentinel and Indianapolis News.

THE WRITER

A few years after marrying Eugenie Kountze, Nicholson and his wife moved to Denver, where he became treasurer for the Northern Coal Company. Although unhappy away from Indiana, Nicholson managed to keep his ties with the state by producing The Hoosiers, one of the best works on Indiana's culture and literature. Returning to his home state in 1901, he began a full-time writing career. Between 1903 and 1925, Nicholson published an average of one book a year, most of them novels but also essays, poetry and even a play. The House of a Thousand Candles, a romantic thriller set in northern Indiana, was his most popular book, selling more than 250,000 copies in the United States.

LATER LIFE

In 1912 Nicholson wrote A Hoosier Chronicle, a serious work examining Indiana society and politics at the turn of the century. Many critics consider this his best work. His last work, a collection of essays titled Old Familiar Faces, appeared in 1929. An arden Democrat as well as writer, Nicholson served as American minister to Paraguay (1933-34), Venezuela (1935-38) and Nicaragua (1938-41) under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After Nicholson's return from his Nicaraguan post, he lived in Indianapolis until his death on Dec. 22, 1947.

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