Vaughan Kester

{{short description|American journalist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Vaughan Kester | image = Vaughan Kester.jpg | caption = Kester, ca. 1900 | birth_date = September 12, 1869 | birth_place = New Brunswick, New Jersey | death_date = July 4, 1911 | death_place = Gunston Hall, Fairfax County, Virginia | occupation = Novelist | spouse = Jessie Jennings Kester | parents = Franklin Cooley Kester and Harriet Watkins Kester (cofounder of Cleveland School of Art, died 1926) }} '''Vaughan''' or '''Vaughn Kester''' (September 12, 1869 – July 4, 1911) was an American novelist and journalist.

He was the elder brother of dramatist and author Paul Kester (1870–1933).

His style and topics were influenced by his travels through western and southern U.S., and by his mother's cousin William Dean Howells. His novel ''The Manager of the B & A'' was made into a film in 1916 directed by J.P. McGowan, with Leo Maloney and Helen Holmes, reissued in 1921 as ''The Man from Medicine Hat''. He married Jessie B. Jennings from Mount Vernon, Ohio on August 31, 1898. They had no children.

In 1902, with his brother, he purchased and renovated Woodlawn Plantation.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PnymJjIRKasC&pg=PA56 |title=Mount Vernon, Arlington and Woodlawn|access-date=February 21, 2016|last1=Lowther|first1=Minnie Kendall|year=1922}}</ref> From 1907, he lived at Gunston Hall, where he wrote ''The Prodigal Judge'', and where he died.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oldandsold.com/articles11/virginia-homes-8.shtml|title=Gunston Hall|access-date=February 21, 2016}}</ref> A memorial in his honor was placed by his mother in Pohick Church, which had at one time been the parish church of Gunston Hall.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Book News Monthly|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bq4xAQAAMAAJ|year=1912|publisher=J. Wanamaker}}</ref>

== Published works == * ''The Manager of the B & A'' (1901) * ''The Fortunes of the Landrays'' (1905) * ''John 0' Jamestown'' (1907) * ''The Prodigal Judge'' (1911) (second best-selling book in the United States for 1911) * ''The Just and the Unjust'' (1912) (seventh best-selling book in the United States for 1912) * ''The Hand of the Mighty'' (published 1913) * ''The Cousin of the King'' (play, with his brother Paul)

==References== {{Reflist}}

== External links == * [http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/kesterp.pdf Biographies]{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} of Vaughan and Paul * {{Gutenberg author | id=1707}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Vaughan Kester}} * {{Librivox author |id=1861}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kester, Vaughan}} Category:1869 births Category:1911 deaths Category:American male novelists Category:Writers from New Brunswick, New Jersey Category:People from Fairfax County, Virginia Category:Novelists from Virginia Category:20th-century American novelists Category:Journalists from Virginia Category:20th-century American male writers Category:Novelists from New Jersey Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:American male non-fiction writers