The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-12-30
GUNTER OF SALT LAKE.
How the Author of Barnes of New
York Has Progressed. @

Although a well-known playwright
before his Mr. Barnes of New York was
produced, Mr.. Archibald CIayering
Gunter is best and most widely known
by this work, which he first produced
as a novel Indeed, its success as
novel is much greater by fsr than lis
success as play.
Archibald G. Gunter is an English
man by birth, an American by educa-
ton and German in appearance and
probably by descent. When he was yet
mere boy he LETT Liverpool, England,
his native place, in October, 1852,
for San Francisco. Most Of his
education was obtained at San
Francisco, and in 1865 he graduated at
the University of that city. Engineer
ing was to be his profession, and the
first three months after he had gradu-
ated were spent in working as a civil
engineer on the Central Pacific Rail
road. Then came as many years Iabo-
ratory work at organic chemistry, so
that Mr.. Gunter has had the rigid
scientific training that il more than
one instance has been found TO be asso-
ciated with good imaginative work,
and that without doubt helps rather
than binders that work. apparently so
dissimilar from itself. After the labora-
tory and shop practice came the
practice as mining engineer in
California, Nevada and Utah, for
the six years from 1868 EDWARDS. Tee
years 1874 to 1877 were the time of the
great Bonanza excitement, and in
these Gupter turned stockbloker. But
all this while and through all this
work his mind was constantly turning
ID and dwelling upon its one lova-the
stage. At the University College i'll
San Francisco he had been the stage
manager of the College Dramatic So
their ambition large. Hence the var
had to be adapted and this work fell to
Gunter. Thus he acquired that prac
teal knowledge of the stage, without
which it seems impossible for anyone
to he writer of nlqvs.
Like every other dramatist, Gu lter
wrote many plays DeIuIe he as ac-
cepted, and the first drama that found
favor with a manager, Found from
True Vein, play of western life, was
not produced alter acceptance by the
California Theatre. and probably never
will be, as it is crude and now out of
timeliness. Cuba, his second play, was
produced at the California Theatre and
had a run of two nights. Gunter's
next play. of which the name even has
been lost, ran for a week. Then he
wrote play for Clara Morris entitled
The Soul of an Actress, in which she
appeared successfully for tTo weeks,
aud which is even now played by GER
tain class of actresses on the road in
provincial districts.
In the fall of 1880 Gunter put on at
the Union Square Theatre his drama,
1.-TWO Nights in Rome" which had
run of some weeks. Next John t.
Raymond produced his Fresh, the
American" at the Park Theatre and
afterwards with no little public favor
on the road. Since then Gunter has
been pretty we'll known as a dramatist
and has had several plays produced,
most prominent of which are "After
the Opera" "A Wall Street Bandit"
courage" prince Karl" and "The
Deacon's Daughter"
Mr.. Gunter's novel, "Mr. Barnes of
New York." was begun in 1884 and
finished in 1885. Before line of the
book was written Mr.. Gunter had par
TALLY prepared il as play, and at that |
time his only object in publishing the |
work as a novel was to advertise the |
work as play. He offered the manu- /