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4 unusual facts about Alfred Leland Crabb


Alfred Leland Crabb

While teaching at Peabody in the 1940s, the typist for his manuscripts was a student, future Playboy centerfold Bettie Page.

He wrote two books about his native state, Home to Kentucky: A Novel of Henry Clay in 1953, and Peace at Bowling Green (1955) a story of a community from the pioneer times of 1803 to the end of the Civil War.

Crabb was best known for his trilogy of historical novels published between 1942 and 1945 that featured Nashville landmarks: Dinner at Belmont, Supper at the Maxwell House, and Breakfast at The Hermitage. The historical sites and traditional southern meals of their titles reflect Crabb's interest in the southern way of life in Nashville during the last half of the 19th century.

Two of his most colorful creations, a nameless driver and his sidekick, College Grove (named for his place of nativity), impart a wide variety of southern and rural folklore and music.



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