ALLEN, JAMES LANE 0849-1925), American author, was born Dec. 2I, 1849, on a small plantation near Lexington, Ky., where he passed most of his early life. He acquired a scholarly background for his creative work through his study at Transyl vania university (then called Kentucky university), his professor ship of Latin and English at Bethany college, West Virginia, his teaching of languages in preparatory schools and his own wide reading and early essays in criticism. The landscape and gentle breeding of Kentucky inspired his first ripe and polished series of tales, Flute and Violin 0891). These are the dominant notes also in his sketches, The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky 0892), and his early novels, A Kentucky Cardinal (1894) and its sequel, Aftermath (1895), and The Choir Invisible (1897). A Summer in Arcady (1896) marks a transition to a second phase in which he is preoccupied with problems, largely of sex, as in The Mettle of the Pasture (t9o3), The Bride of the Mistletoe 0909) and The Doctor's Christmas Eve (Iwo), although The Reign of Law ( t9oo) concerned itself with a youth whose old-fashioned faith was shattered by his new-found science. His latest novels are more varied. His early poems, beautiful and serious as they were, have never been published in book form. He died in New York, Feb. 18, 1925.