A Cathedral Singer

A Cathedral Singer is a short novel by James Lane Allen (1849-1925), published in 1916. The book belongs to Allen’s later career, after his Kentucky novels of the 1890s and early 1900s had established his reputation as one of the leading American regional writers of his generation.

The novel shifts away from Allen’s typical Kentucky setting to take up an urban subject. The cathedral singer of the title is a young boy with a remarkable singing voice whose musical gift develops within the institutional context of a great cathedral choir. Allen handles the material with attention to both the musical and spiritual dimensions of cathedral choral life and to the practical questions facing a young musician trying to develop a serious career.

The book was less commercially successful than Allen’s earlier Kentucky work. By 1916 the literary tastes of the American magazine and book audience had shifted serious from the genteel realism of his earlier period, and Allen’s later books reached a smaller audience than his 1890s successes had commanded.