Caleb West, Master Diver is a novel published in 1898 by Francis Hopkinson Smith that was the best selling book in the United States in 1898.Alice Payne Hackett. Seventy Years of Best Sellers 1895-1965, p. 94 (1967) (the lists for 1895-1912 in this volume are derived from the lists published in The Bookman (New York)) It was first serialized in The Atlantic Monthly from October 1897 to March 1898, and was published in book form by Houghton Mifflin in April 1898 with illustrations by Malcolm Fraser and Arthur I. Keller.(2 April 1898). "Caleb West."; Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith's New Work of Fiction, The New York Times
The book is based on Smith's experience in the building of the Race Rock Light near Fishers Island, New York in the 1870s.
Adaptations
The novel was adapted into a play by Michael Morton.
It was also adapted into a silent film in 1912, and a 1920 silent film called Deep Waters.
References
External links
Caleb West: Master Driver, full scan of 1898 Houghton & Mifflin edition via archive.org
(1912) Captain Thomas A. Scott, Master Diver (1908) (Smith's short tribute to the actual master driver on the Race Rock project)