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as to why wars are fought, and how they are bungled and protracted, while those who fight them lose their lives and fortunes" (577). In Boon Island, however, Roberts's "finding the truth'' theme refers to an abstract, motivating force as well as to "what actually happened." As Roberts concludes in his book: "How many of us have our Boon Islands? And how many have our Langmans? But doesn't each one of us have an inner America on which in youth his heart is set; and ifbecause of age, or greed, or weakness of will, or circumstances beyond his poor controlit escapes him, his life, to my way of thinking, has been wasted" (372).

Thus, Roberts, a fervent nationalist all his life, maintains that America allows individuals to accomplish whatever they are capable of attaining. And while America also symbolizes the goals people wish to achieve, for Roberts Boon Island represents the courage and integrity that a person needs to confront and overcome life's inevitable adversities so he can reach these goals. Roberts summed up his feelings in a memo, written a few weeks before his death in July 1957. It read: "Boon Island is us fighting the world. We ain't got a Chinaman's chancebut with guts we can somehow lick the world." 14

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Notes

1. Page numbers cited in text refer to the present edition.

2. Kenneth Roberts, Rabble in Arms (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), 577, hereafter cited in text; March to Quebec: Journals of the Members of Arnold's Expedition, compiled and annotated by Kenneth Roberts (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953), 43.

3. "Roberts Shocks Portsmouth: Famous Author Stirs Warner House Asc.," Kittery (Maine) Press, August 13, 1937, 1, 5.

4. Kenneth Roberts, "Notes for a Discussion with Booth," August 24, 1934, Adams Manuscript Collection, Indiana University, Lilly Library.

5. Lewis Nichols, "A Visit with Mr. Roberts," New York Times Book Review, 1 January 1956, 3.

6. Alice Dixon Bond, "Kenneth Roberts' New Novel Proves Own View, That Writer Must Have 'Stood Up to Live,'" Boston Herald, January 15, 1956, sec. 1, p. 2.

7. Ibid.

8. Lewis Gannett, "Book Review," New York Herald Tribune, January 2, 1956, 11.

9. John Deane, A Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Nottingham Galley, & c. Publish'd in 1711. Revis'd, and reprinted with additions in 1726, by John Deane, commander. [London, 1726], 28; reprinted herein; page numbers refer to the present edition; hereafter cited in text as Dean, Roberts's spelling of the name throughout Boon Island. Roberts's annotated copy is in the Kenneth Roberts Collection of the Dartmouth College Library.

10. Kenneth Roberts, I Wanted to Write (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1949), 187.

11. Christopher Langman, Nicholas Mellen, and George White, A True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham-Galley of London, John Dean Commander, from the River Thames to New-England, Near which Place she was cast away on Boon-Island, December 11, 1710, by the Captain's Obstinacy, who endeavour'd to betray her to the French, or run her ashore; with an Account of the Falsehoods in the Captain's Narrative (London: Printed for S. Popping, 1711), 52; reprinted herein; page numbers refer to the present edition; hereafter cited in text as Langman.

12. Herbert Faulkner West, "The Work of Kenneth Roberts," Colby Library Quarterly 6 (September 1962): 98.

13. Walter Havighurst, "Kenneth Roberts' Somber Tale of Cold, Desperation," Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine of Books, January 1, 1956, 3.

14. Kenneth Roberts, memorandum, July 1957, Dartmouth College Library.

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Boon Island

Kenneth Roberts

Page 104

With the exception of actual historical personages identified as such, the characters and incidents are entirely the product of the author's imagination and have no relation to any person or event in real life.

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To Stephen Nason

Vicar of St. Alfege, Greenwich

with the gratitude and admiration of

his American cousin

Page 107

Chapter 1

Greenwich, for all its faults, was a fascinating