ABSTRACT
When studying Wright’s biography and works, it is an obligation to refer to his autobiography of 1932. However, over intervening years, it has been discovered that it and other writings were either unreliable, particularly when speaking of his early years, or otherwise difficult to to unriddle. This is mainly the result of a peculiar prose style that clouded meaning. One historian and student of Wright of more than a few decades, Gilbert Herbert, has referred to a “cavalier attitude to facts” pointing to the “unreliability” of Wright’s “written testimony.” It is true that, as people age, their memories play tricks, recollections faint, errors appear. But with Wright, many apparently innocent tricks were perpetuated over decades, leaving a reader to wonder as to motive, particularly when it is apparent that some were intentionally meant to claim unearned credit while others seem to be deliberately self-serving.1 This is sad because truth better serves Wright: reality always of greater value. Distortions by Wright and the more ardent of his followers led to fantasies, errors, and myths that need the light of clarification or by unbiased examination. Perhaps the most troubling is the late teen years just before marriage at age twenty-one.
