Who Was Leonard Cline?

Leonard Lanson Cline, Jr., was born in Bay City, Michigan, on 11 May 1893. He grew up in Detroit, where his father worked in newspaper advertising. Following his death in 1904, Jessie Forsyth Cline moved to Ann Arbor with her two children, Elizabeth and Leonard. Cline attended a Jesuit high school in Montreal, before matriculating at the Uni­versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the fall of 1910. He attended college for three years, and left before completing his course in order to marry Louise Smurthwaite. The marriage took place on 28 October 1913. Cline went into newspaper work, in Bay City and Ypsilanti, and finally in Detroit, where he served on the staff of the Detroit News from 1916-22, first as a reporter, but later, with increasing responsibilities, as fine arts editor—reviewing music, drama, art, and literature. Cline’s first book, Poems, was published just after the birth of his daughter, Mary Louise, in September 1914. Cline’s son, Leonard III, was born in 1916.

In early 1922, Cline left Detroit to take a position on the Baltimore Sun offered to him by H.L. Mencken. Around this time his writings had begun appearing in the most notable publications of his day, including The Smart Set, The American Mercury, Scribner’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic and others. During this period he also suffered from a serious problem with alcohol. After being divorced by his wife, Cline moved frequently and wrote for a number of newspapers, including the New York World, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Chicago Daily News, and the New York Herald­ Tribune.

His first novel, God Head, was on the first list of six books published by the Viking Press in the fall of 1925. Viking also published his second novel, Listen, Moon!, in 1926. A play Cline co-authored was produced in late 1926, and at this time he married again. Cline’s translation of Thomas Raucat’s The Honorable Picnic appeared in June 1927, and was followed soon after by his third novel, The Dark Chamber. All were representative of Cline’s remarkable versatility, and their common poetic style is about the only indication of their mutual authorship.

In the late spring of 1927, Cline’s friend Wilfred Irwin came to stay with him at his rural Connecticut house. Irwin worked for a New York insurance brokerage, and came from a distinguished Virginia family. Apparently, Cline and Irwin were fast friends when sober, but they quarreled when drinking. Their first drunken bout left Cline badly beaten by the larger man, Irwin, who spent the night in jail. The next morning Cline paid the fine to have his friend released. A few weeks later, after a long night of drinking, a more serious quarrel left Irwin mortally wounded by Cline’s shotgun fire. Irwin was rushed to a hospital, where Cline insisted upon giving a blood transfusion which might save his friend’s life.

Irwin died several hours later, after giving an antemortem statement which absolved his friend of guilt. The State of Connecticut, however, charged Cline with first-degree murder and after four days of a highly publicized trial in September 1927, Cline changed his plea to guilty of manslaughter.

He was sentenced to a year in the Tolland, Connecticut, jail, where he reconverted to his youthful Catholicism after having been fiercely atheistic. Cline’s second wife deserted him, and in order to raise enough money to save his Connecticut farm, he began writing the pseudonymous “Alan Forsyth” stories for the pulp magazines. For his pseudonym, Cline chose a shortening of his maternal grandfather’s name, Oscar Fitzalan Forsyth. Similarly, Cline had chosen the name “Oscar Fitzalan” for the protagonist of The Dark Chamber.

Cline was released from jail in July 1928, his sentence shortened by two months for good behavior. Soon after this, he reconciled with his first wife, and they planned to remarry when Cline could achieve more financial stability. Then, around December 1928, Cline moved again to New York City, taking a job with Time magazine. On 15 January 1929, Cline hosted a small party at his Greenwich Village apartment to celebrate the recent sale of a scenario for a play. To one friend he complained of chest pains, and after that night he was seen no more. Five days later he was found dead of heart failure, at the early age of 35. A posthumous poetry collection, After-Walker, was published by Viking in 1930.

Extracted from my Introduction to The Lady of Frozen Death and Other Stories (1992) by Leonard Cline, writing as Alan Forsyth. Used by permission.