{"id":444102,"date":"2026-09-22T14:39:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T14:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/444102\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T14:39:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T14:39:06","slug":"fort-worth-elite-tried-to-erase-this-book-but-decades-later-its-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/444102\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth elite tried to erase this book, but decades later it’s back"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1940, 25-year-old James Atlee Phillips, writing under the pen name Philip Atlee, authored \u201cThe Inheritors,\u201d a satirical cultural criticism based on the pre-World War II elite of Fort Worth. Despite praise for his literary debut, the upper echelon of Cowtown was not amused by Phillips\u2019 portrayal of the wealthy, and went to great lengths to have the novel wiped from existence<\/a>. For years, the novel existed only in devoted collectors\u2019 libraries. <\/p>\n

Until now. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Inheritors\u201d is being reissued for the first time since its original publication by Fort Worth\u2019s only publishing company, TCU Press.<\/p>\n

As quickly as \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d grew in notoriety, it was pulled from shelves. Scandal erupted within the city. The book was ultimately pushed into obscurity, allegedly purchased en masse by the very subjects it was based on. <\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s as if it only existed for a brief moment and then vanished completely \u2014 from bookstores, from libraries, from resellers,\u201d Phillips\u2019 son, Liam Phillips, wrote to the Observer. \u201cIt was just gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last 86 years, only a few copies of \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d could be traced. The few remaining copies<\/a> cost up to $2,000, and the book earned a reputation as a Texas literary classic among those lucky enough to have one. The Fort Worth Public Library had a singular copy, kept under lock and key. Liam hadn\u2019t even read a copy of the book until after his father passed away in 1991. But now, with no outrage to stop the book, it will be made available at a large scale for the first time ever. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m over here in Fort Worth, and everything seems to have happened everywhere else in the country and in the world, but it turns out we had this Hemingway, this Steinbeck, this Fitzgerald right here in our backyard,\u201d E.R. Bills, a Fort Worth-based journalist, historian and author of the reissue\u2019s introduction, tells the Observer.<\/p>\n

The \u2018dollar aristocracy\u2019 retaliate<\/p>\n

Fort Worth\u2019s River Crest Country Club is one of many backdrops for \u201cThe Inheritors.\u201d River Crest was where the \u201cdollar aristocracy\u201d<\/a> of well-to-do bankers, financiers, oil tycoons and businessmen cocooned themselves from the rest of common Fort Worth to delightfully hobnob in style.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[James Phillips] uses this phrase quite frequently, \u2018the dollar aristocracy,\u2019 people who have elevated themselves and removed themselves from the general population because of their wealth, and they go about the Depression ignoring as much of it as they can,\u201d says Dan Williams, director of TCU Press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The book playfully demystifies the intricacies of the city\u2019s social structure in 1935, from the perspectives of two young aristocrats \u2014 George Bellamy Jimble III, said to represent James, and his friend Cavin Jarvis, allegedly based on the real-life friend Roy Lawrence Harris. The novel follows the two men who are born into wealth and their alcohol-fueled debauchery and promiscuity as they aimlessly navigate life with no direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not people; we\u2019re just a set of attitudes walking around with logic-locked approaches to everything in life, and 30 phrases locked up in back of our teeth\u2026,\u201d Jarvis says in the book.<\/p>\n

James unravels the illusion of the prim and proper Wild West nobility to reveal lies, deception, marital affairs, alcoholism, depression and the waywardness of pre-World War II heirs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe characters were based on people in Fort Worth,\u201d Liam says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know any of them, certainly, and I don\u2019t know if any of them are still alive to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the book creating a city-wide furor, James never stopped writing, and the family never disowned the young writer. <\/p>\n

\u201c[My dad] said there were rumors that they were burning the books, or that they were throwing them away, or destroying them in some fashion,\u201d Liam says. \u201cThere were rumors that family members were involved in this, but I never saw any evidence of that. I find it impossible to believe that his mother, who loved him so much, would ever go along with any of that. So I don\u2019t think the Phillipses themselves were involved in the acquisition of the physical book and the destruction of it, but they were [certainly] aware of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The castaway<\/p>\n

Not long after \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d was released, James was run out of town and adopted self-imposed isolation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an element of defeat and resentment and resolve at the same time\u2026 to keep going,\u201d Liam says. \u201cBut he didn\u2019t want to do it in that environment. He became the form of a recluse that is a nomad, because he started wandering the world. He did that all through my childhood \u2014 he was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

When their father was around, Liam and his brother Shawn recall the typewriter\u2019s clicks awakening them at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he felt a bit defeated, but I think he kind of came on top of it and still continued to write,\u201d Shawn says. <\/p>\n

Liam inherited the rights to his father\u2019s entire body of work, which includes more than 20 novels.<\/p>\n

The reprint <\/p>\n

\u201c[\u2018The Inheritors\u2019] arrives at a moment when its central themes \u2014 inherited privilege, the moral bankruptcy of the ultra-rich and the aimlessness of those born to wealth without purpose \u2014 feel less like period detail and more like a mirror,\u201d reads a press release from TCU Press.<\/p>\n

For Philips\u2019 sons, the novel\u2019s reprint is a posthumous victory lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he would be fairly happy with it,\u201d Shawn says. \u201cHe would realize that he had achieved more than he thought capable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reprint adds a new page to Fort Worth\u2019s cultural catalog and rewrites a once erased history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it gets the sales that it deserves, and more importantly, what I really meant to say, the attention it deserves because he was here and he said the things that needed to be said and they crucified him for it,\u201d Bills says. \u201cThey stomped on him, and they stomped on his reputation until it didn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Inheritors\u201d is now available on the official TCU Press <\/a>website and at select major retailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1940, 25-year-old James Atlee Phillips, writing under the pen name Philip Atlee, authored \u201cThe Inheritors,\u201d a satirical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,8386,5177],"class_list":["post-444102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-history-nostalgia","tag-national-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}