By His Own Hand

Henry W. Clune (February 8, 1890 – October 9, 1995 was an American writer. A well-known journalist for the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, New York, his column "Seen and Heard" was published in that paper for 55 years. He also penned 14 books; including six novels.

Basically this is a fictionalized account of the life or George Eastman (Alan Wesley), founder of Kodak (Wesley Works) in Rochester (Minerva), NY. The story is told through his relationships with three women. In real life George Eastman never married, but Wesley's three liaisons, though entertaining, are a bit hard to believe, especially the last one, Judy, a daughter of the first woman in the book.

From Kirkus Reviews...

The story of Alan Wesley, self made millionaire, who had created through his own ambition and effort- and a certain ruthlessness and inhumanity- an industrial empire which dominated the town in which it was. But through Wesley, it is the story of many such American towns and cities, where the power of industrial might and money, in the wrong hands, held the reins of political power, kept the little people ground down in fear, controlled the press, and used might instead of right to get results. Sometimes, in Wesley's hands, the goal was a good one,- better city government, even though he planned to make it his tool and used ungodly means to secure it; a less limited social pattern-though it hurt many in the process of forging through the old bonds; a cleaner press, and so on. But Wesley himself, despite the infrequent moments of softening under the influence of two women in his life, remained a brittle, hard and lonely man, who occasionally found himself on the verge of happiness, and usually lost it through his own obsessions. The story starts in 1906- the setting is a growing city in western central New York (fairly recognizable as Rochester)- and the novel, which carries on to Roosevelt's administration, has the recognizable feel of a familiar passing scene. The market might well be somewhat like that for the Taylor Caldwell novels, though there is less involvement with plot and more with character in this.

From a 1990 Los Angles Times review of another Clune book. [By his Own Hand was] Clune's magnum opus. For years he had worked on a massive novel about a ruthless, steel-willed industrialist whose genius enriches a city and destroys its crusty Victorian social hierarchy. Clune called the novel, which was loosely based on the life of Rochester's George Eastman, "The Stars Have Monstrous Eyes." His editor, Cecil Scott, renamed it "By His Own Hand," an awful title better hung on some ponderous paperback with lumpish prose and an embossed cover.

"When I signed the contract at the Grosvenor Hotel," he recalls, "George Brett, the president of Macmillan, said, 'Mr. Clune, if you'll sign this contact we believe we've got the most popular success since 'Gone With the Wind.' "

Clune readied himself for a fame that never came. Orville Prescott of the New York Times ridiculed the book as "vulgar petty gossip," and though it went on to win qualified praise and sell 55,000 copies, it fell far short of Brett's promise.