The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FINEST SIDE OF " THE SUN"
Literary Associations of an Editorial Department That Has
Encouraged and Attracted Men of Imagination and Talent.-Mitchell, Hazeltine, Church, and Their Colleagues.
T HE Sun's association with literature, particularly
with fiction, has been more intimate than that of
any other daily American newspaper. Ben Day had
a taste for fiction, else the moon hoax, a bit of good
writing as well as the greatest of fakes, would not have
appeared. In the time of Moses Y. Beach the balloon
hoax and other writings of Poe were in the Sun. Moses
S. Beach, who owned or controlled the paper for twenty
years, brought popularity and profit to it through
stories written exclusively for the Sun by Mary J.
Holmes, Horatio Alger, Jr., and a dozen other authors
whose tales compelled readers to burn the midnight gas.
Under Dana the Sun's interest in literature became
broader, more intense. Dana's knowledge that the most
avid appetite of the public was for the short story and
the novel, led him to encourage his men to adopt, when
feasible, the fiction form in news writing. In his fourpage daily there was not much room for romance proper,
but when the Sunday Sun was under way, its eight
pages afforded space for tales of fancy.
In the first few years of Dana's ownership the walks
of American literature were not crowded. As late as
1875 the Sun lamented:
For younger rising men we look almost in vain. Bret
Harte gives no promise of lasting fecundity. Howells
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