Dean of Travel Writers

With affectionate esteem the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and the Far East call him the Dean of American Travel Writers. Aged 78, Sydney Clark '12 has written half a hundred books. He has been decorated by Italy, France, Sweden, Spain, and Norway. In Stockholm his official title is Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star.

He likes to refer to his North Star, his wife Mardi. She types his thousands of pages written in longhand, and she keeps him on the beam.

Oblivious of compasses, Sydney sails head-on into stormy weather, the toughest sections in the world's toughest cities. In 50 years of exposure to foul weather, only once has he been nearly wrecked by a hurricane, and that was this year. In the calm seas of a fashionable London hotel a sudden squall knocked him down. He was clobbered, tied up, gagged, threatened with a slit throat if he moved an inch, and robbed of all his money and personal possessions, even his fountain pen. No bones broken but black and blue, he has kept the name of the hotel and the name of its horrified manager a secret—out of courtesy. The thugs proved too slippery for Scotland Yard.

How does a man go about writing travel books? Sydney jots down what he sees, hears, and does on the spot. Thus he acquires freshness and focus. He scribbles on jiggle-joggle buses, taxis, and railroad trains. When he cannot decipher his notes, he calls on Mardi. He ignores hearsay reports, refuses to crib from other travel writers, and 96% of the time depends on his own on-the-spot research. The other 4% he fills in with information from dependable and expert friends. The only South American country he has never visited is Paraguay. He based his chapter on it from notes given him by a close friend who spent two years building roads there. The American Consul in Buenos Aires praised him, "I like your book. It's factual and lively, but the chapter on Paraguay is truly outstanding. You must have lived there a long time to write with such first-hand expertness." A trifle deflated, the travel writer kept silent.

With a reputation for blunt honesty Sydney Clark does not tell all. Rarely does he write derogatorily about hotels and restaurants unless there is gross negligence, arrogant discourtesy, and unforgivably bad service. He simply omits all mention of places where they occurred. With a little witty sarcasm his books would sell better, but he prefers sweet taciturnity.

At Dartmouth a Psi U, Sidney Clark sang in the Glee Club, played in the College Orchestra, captained the cross-country team, and edited the Dartmouth Literary Magazine. During his school and college years he made five long trips abroad with his parents, the first in the Gay Nineties, which at the age of six he was unable to appreciate. With them he lived for a year in Rio de Janeiro, another in Brussels, and four in Paris. As a young college graduate he was too restless to stay long in teaching, real estate, radio, and advertising.

His first book venture, with his father as co-author, was The Charm of Scandinavia, published in 1914. Now 54 years later, with Mardi as co-pilot, he offers a tour, All theBest in Scandinavia, which is reviewed with charm and insight on another page by a Danish resident, an American woman born and brought up in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Sydney Clark '12 and his wife Mardi onthe ferry slip at Yttendal on a narrowarm of the Storfjord in Norway.