This Goodly Land

Octavus Roy Cohen (June 26, 1891–January 6, 1959)

Alabama Connections

• Birmingham, Jefferson County: brief adult residence, setting for stories

Selected Works

• Cohen, Octavus Roy. The Crimson Alibi. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1919.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. Polished Ebony. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1919. Rpt. Freeport, N.Y: Books For Libraries Press, 1970. An online version of Polished Ebony is available from Google Book Search.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. Midnight. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1922. An online version of Midnight is available from Google Book Search.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. Jim Hanvey, Detective. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1923.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. Florian Slappey Goes Abroad. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1928. Rpt. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. East of Broadway. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1938.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. Kid Tinsel. New York: Appleton-Century, 1941.
• Cohen, Octavus Roy. Danger in Paradise. New York: Macmillan Company, 1946.

Biographical Information

Octavus Roy Cohen was born in Charleston, S.C. He studied engineering at Clemson Agricultural College (now Clemson University) and worked briefly for the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railway Company in Birmingham, Ala. After deciding that engineering was not a suitable career for him, Cohen became a journalist, working for the Birmingham Ledger and newspapers in Charleston and in New Jersey. In 1912, he returned to Charleston and studied law in his father’s office. After passing the bar in 1913, Cohen practiced law for two years in Charleston. He began writing short stories, and, when his first one was published in 1915, he began writing full-time.

Cohen’s short stories were published in national magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s. He also wrote novels and several plays produced on Broadway. In 1935, Cohen moved to Los Angeles to write motion picture scripts. The same year, his radio drama The Townsend Murder Mystery was also published in novel form. From 1945 to 1946, Cohen wrote for the radio series Amos 'n' Andy. Several of his stories were adapted for television in the 1950s. Cohen died in Los Angeles of a stroke at the age of sixty-seven.

Interests and Themes

Octavus Roy Cohen’s fiction includes dialect stories and mysteries featuring colorful private detectives. He is probably best known for his Florian Slappey stories set in Birmingham and Harlem. The characters in these stories are caricatures of black Americans who speak an exaggerated black dialect.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Last updated on May 30, 2008.