H. C. Bunner

Henry Kyler Banner (August 3, 1855 - May 11, 1896) was an American novelist and poet. It is known mainly for the Tower of Babel. Henry Kyler Banner was born in Oswego, New York, with Rudolph Banner Jr. (1813-1875) and Ruth Keating Tuckerman (1821-1896) and was educated in New York. His paternal grandparents were Rudolf Banner (1779-1837) and Elizabeth Church (1783-1867), daughter of John Barker (1748-1818) and Angelica Schuyler (1756-1814). In 1886, he published the Midge novel, followed by The History of the New York House in 1887. But his best efforts in fiction were his short stories and drafts of “Short Sixes” (1891), “More Short Sixes” (1894), “Made in France” (1893), “Zadok Pine and Other Stories” (1891), “Love in Old Clothing and Other Stories” (1896)) and Jersey Street and Jersey Lane (1896). His poems "Air from Arcadia and other countries" (1884), containing the famous poem "The Path to the Ready"; Rowan (1892); and Poems (1896), edited by his friend Brander Matthews, featuring an easy play of imagination and exquisite workmanship. He also wrote clever versions of society and parodies. One of his several plays (usually co-authored) was the Tower of Babel (1883). His short story Zenobia's Infidelity was made into a feature film called Zenobia starring Harry Langdon and Oliver Hardy by the Hal Roach Studio in 1939. His short story Zenobia Infidelity was turned into the Zenobia feature film starring Harry Langdon and Oliver Hardy in Hal Roach Studios in 1939.