Pike's Peak or Bust

David Van Bush (1882-1959) was a uniquely American phenomenon. Born in Pennsylvania, Bush became a Congregational pastor but spent most of his life lecturing on a wide array of subjects. He was an early proponent of what would later be termed the "self-help" movement, writing such books as Applied Psychology and Scientific Living (1922), The Psychology of Sex (1924), If You Want to Be Rich (1954), and many others. He was also a poet, with such distinctive volumes as Peace Poems and Sausages (1915) and Poems of Mastery and Love Verse (1922). Bush is virtually forgotten today, known only because the supernaturalist H. P. Lovecraft revised some of his prose and poetry. Ken Faig, Jr. has spent years researching this exhaustive biography of Bush, which chronicles the ups and downs of his long life, which included arrests by various government agencies for marketing products of dubious quality. Faig provides plot summaries of every one of Bush's books and, in general, paints a portrait of a dynamic salesman with boundless self-confidence who was part guru and part charlatan. Everyone interested in the culture of the interwar years in America will find this work fascinating.