He enjoyed a considerable amount of success with a series of novels in the 1930s and 1940s which culminated in his 1943 work Colonel Effingham's Raid, which was made into a film.
Afterward, his popularity dwindled (along with him firing of his publicist[2]), and he abandoned writing for nearly two decades after the publication of The Fortune Tellers in 1951.
He received a resurgence in popularity with the publication of his last novel Captain Bennett's Folly in 1989 just months before his death.
The work was favorably reviewed in The New York Times among other publications, and since then many of his earlier neglected novels have been republished with more successful sales than during his lifetime.
[3] His papers are held by the University of Georgia's Hargett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.