The Making of Bobby Burnit

The Making of Bobby Burnit; Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man, by George Randolph Chester. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg and F. R. Gruger. ©1908 & 1909.

Every so often I take a break from Buchanan’s Journal of Man and The Knickerbocker and post-process somebody else’s project. Usually it’s an essay book or some crap vintage fiction. This time it’s a novel that can best be described as a “business romance” with overtones of creepiness and the occasional thrill.

Bobby Burnit’s successful merchant father, John Burnit, has died, leaving his 3 million dollar estate wholly to his son. Half has been placed in trust so that Bobby can maintain a good living, and the other half is to be doled out in 250k chunks for Bobby to either succeed or fail in business. Each failure leads to another draw. The idea is that the elder Burnit had not done well to train his son in Business, and therefore is using this staged bankruptcy to help Bobby determine if he is just going to have to live on Daddy’s fortune or if he can create his own.

That’s the business part. Without giving away too much of the plot, Bobby is basically a good guy, though a bit naïve, and invests in everything from swampland to public utilities to a newspaper to an opera company, and is continually taken for a ride. At his side is Agnes, Bobby’s sweetheart and one of his father’s trustees. She, of course, is smart, forthright and beautiful, and refuses to marry Bobby until he has either succeeded or failed. That’s the romance part.

The thrills are some political machinations, bits of fisticuffs, and a near drowning.

The creepy part isn’t eldritch so much as just well, creepy. Bobby’s father knew just what Bobby’s path to success or failure would be, and left short letters with his trustees to be given to Bobby at appropriate points. So throughout the book, Bobby is handed a gray envelope, often labeled something like “To my son, on the occasion of his buying swampland” or “To my son, on the loss of the business to that Silas Trimmer.” John Burnit is as much a character as the ex-pugilist sidekick (and has better lines), but except for the original fault of training Bobby correctly the first time, was apparently perfect at everything he did. Perhaps he was just precognitive.

This book was made into a 4-reel movie in 1914. The synopsis, according to TCM:

Bobby Burnit, a naïve young man, inherits $300,000 from his father, a hard-working entrepreneur. Because the will specifies that the money must be invested, Agnes Elliston, Bobby’s sweetheart, suggests that he take over his father’s chain of stores. Soon Bobby becomes the dupe of various swindlers and charlatans, among them Sam Stone and Bobby’s shady lawyer. With the help of Bobby’s friend Biff Bates and Daniel Johnson, a loyal employee of Bobby’s father, the swindlers are exposed in the newspaper and Bobby’s inheritance is saved. Finally, after rescuing Agnes from Stone’s advances, Bobby proposes to her, thus complying with all of his late father’s wishes.

Like most movies based on novels, it seems to be merely inspired by the novel. Bobby didn’t have a “shady lawyer” in the book. For other changes, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.