Vance Thompson (April 17, 1863 - June 5, 1925) was an American

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

, novelist,

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

low-carbohydrate diet Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates (e.g., sugar, bread, pasta) are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein (e.g., meat, p ...

writer.

Biography

The son of a

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

pastor and brother of Maud Thompson, he was educated at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

and graduated in 1883. He later studied in Germany, and worked as a dramatic critic in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

from 1890 to 1897.In 1890, he was married to stage actress and novelist Lillian Spencer. Like fellow-aesthete and good friend

James Huneker James Gibbons Huneker (January 31, 1857 – February 9, 1921) was an American art, book, music, and theater critic. A colorful individual and an ambitious writer, he was "an American with a great mission," in the words of his friend, the critic Be ...

, he helped bring fin-de-siècle French authors to the attention of the American public. He also wrote a study on the ego entitled ''the Ego Book: a Book of Selfish Ideals'' (1914). A study of French authors with ties to the Symbolist movement was published in 1913, entitled ''French Portraits: Being Appreciations of the Writers of Young France''. From 1895 to 1899, he co-edited the periodical ''M'lle New York'' with Huneker. Described as "a highly idiosyncratic blend of serious analyses and presentations of European Symbolist literature and thought with buffoonery and incessant anti-philistinism", it quickly became a manifesto for their cultural ideals.

Dieting

Thompson authored several books on healthy living, such as 1914's ''Eat and Grow Thin'' and 1916's ''Drink and Be Sober''. His diet book ''Eat and Grow Thin'' was popular, by 1931 it was in its 112th printing. It advocates a

and contains a list of "forbidden foods".Elias, Megan J. (2009). ''Food in the United States, 1890-1945''. ABC-CLIO. pp. 129-130. Thompson believed that

dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut of pork, cut that has been food preservation, preserved by wet or dry Curing (food preservation), curing, with or without smoking (cooking), smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. Lo ...

bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...

bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

cereal A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es,

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

, and all alcoholic drinks should be avoided. He recommended eating all kinds of meat (except pig),

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

, sea-food, eggs, fruit and green

vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...

s. The book was criticized for misrepresenting nutritional science. Physician B. B. Vincent Lyon criticized ''Eat and Grow Thin'' for promoting a

fad diet A fad diet is a diet that becomes popular for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements. There is no single defini ...

. Lyon noted that the high-protein content of the diet is dangerous for obese patients or those with cardiovascular or renal insufficiencies. Physiologist

Graham Lusk Graham Lusk FRS(For) FRSE (February 15, 1866 - July 18, 1932) was an American physiologist, and nutritionist. He graduated from Columbia University, and from University of Munich with a PhD. He was an expert on diabetes. He was profoundly deaf ...

commented that the advice from the book "made so many of my friends so utterly miserable that I am sure that in the end it will counteract its own message."Lusk, Graham. (1917)
''Food In War Time''
''The Scientific Monthly'' 5: 307.

Publications

''French Portraits: Being Appreciations of the Writers of Young France''
(1900) *''Spinners of Life'' (1904) *''Diplomatic Mysteries'' (1905)
''The Life of Ethelbert Nevin''
(1913)
''The Ego Book: A Book of Selfish Ideals''
(1914) *''The Night Watchman and Other Poems'' (1914)
''Eat and Grow Thin: The Mahdah Menus''
(1914)
''Drink and Be Sober''
(1915)
''Verse''
(1915)
''The Carnival of Destiny''
(1916) *''The Peace Girl'' (1916)
''Woman''
(1917)
''Live and Be Young''
(1920) *''The Pointed Tower'' (1923) *''The Green Ray'' (1924) *''The Scarlet Iris'' (1924) *''Mr. Guelpa'' (1925)

References

External links

Scans of ''M'lle Yew York'' at the ''American Decadence'' website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Vance 1863 births 1925 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American poets American literary critics American male non-fiction writers American male novelists American male poets Low-carbohydrate diet advocates Princeton University alumni Pseudoscientific diet advocates