Bio Continued...

However, working at the insurance office was merely his day-job.  During his tenure in London, he made friends among a literary circle which included the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jerome K. Jerome, and Arnold Bennett.  He began contributing articles to various magazines and in 1900 was appointed assistant editor at the journal, Black and White.  Two years later, Eden resigned from the editorship after the success of his first “Dartmoor” novel in order to pursue writing as a full-time career.  At this time he left London for Torquay so that he could be closer to his muse, the moor.  This is not to say that Phillpotts only concerned himself with writing about the West Country, on the contrary, he wrote in almost every conceivable style of writing from novels, to poetry and drama, to essays and memoirs.  However, the West Country always held the highest honor in his heart.  He has even said that “‘Wife and bairns must live, so I publish magazine work, though do not, of course, take as serious anything that is not inspired by the West.’” (Milton 173).  Thus, after leaving London, Eden still wrote for magazines and other publications in order to support his family while still working on his Dartmoor novels and rarely returned to the city except for when a book of his was being published. 

This reclusive tendency has been cited as a contributing factor to Phillpotts’s lack of widespread fame.  His good friend L. A. G. Strong has posited that “…Eden Phillpotts, living in Devon, making no public appearances, member of no clique, servant to no fashion, since the original publication of his Dartmoor novels was not regarded seriously by critics in London or Manchester or at the older universities” (“Assessment” 32).  However, his work is none the less important for this aversion to publicity.  Moreover, Phillpotts’s work would undoubtedly not be as true to the subject had he stayed in London to write his novels.  Immersing himself in the communities that he was writing about is what gave his stories their richness and detail.

It has been argued by his contemporaries and critics that this dexterity in literary media has been Phillpotts’s downfall in terms of widespread recognition.  Strong has has also stated that “Forgetting the English tradition of the man of letters who could turn his hand to several forms of writing, we want our favorites to stick, not only to one form, but to the same kind of thing within it.  Our fattest rewards are given to those who can produce the mixture as before” (“Assessment” 31).  Thus, Strong speculated that it was the reading public’s fault for not appreciating Phillpotts’s aptitude with many writing styles and that they would have given him more credit as a writer had he stuck to writing in one genre.