response 167 of 207:

Dec 7 17:58 UTC 1998

Do I presume you mean Richard Halliburton, the adverturer? Unlike
Halliburton, our author wrote both fiction and non-fiction, although
they were both well travelled, in fact to even some of the same ports.
However they could not have met, and only one would have known of the
other's writings.

Not McManus, but unfortunately I am not familiar with his work, so
I cannot offer contrasts. Also not Tolkein - they indulged in rather
different styles of fantasy.

I meant to comment on remmer's previous guess of London. It would be
interesting if a critic had compared London to the author. They could have
met and, in fact, briefly lived within a half-days journey of each other.
I am pretty sure that one was familiar with the writings of the other and
was probably influenced by them.

Now, to advance our story a little. I use only the initial for the name of
characters: 

   "F. served my meals in my own apartment; and his resemblance to
   the portrait haunted me. At times it was not; at times, upon some
   change of attitude or flash of expression, it would leap out upon
   me like a ghost. It was above all in his ill-tempers that the likeness
   triumphed. He certainly liked me; he was proud of my notice, which
   he sought to engage by many simple and childlike devices; he loved
   to sit close before my fire, talking his broken talk or singing his
   odd, endless, wordless songs, and sometimes drawing his hand over
   my clothes with an affectionate manner of caressing that never failed
   to cause in me an embarrassment of which I was ashamed. But for all
   that, he was capable of flashes of causeless anger and fits of sturdy
   sulleness. At a word of reproof, I have seen him upset the dish of
   which I was about to eat, and this not surreptitiously, but with
   defiance; and similarly at a hint of inquisition. I was not unnaturally
   curious, being in a strange place and surrounded by strange people;
   but at the shadow of a question, he shrank back, lowering and
   dangerous. Then it was that, for a fraction of a second, this rough
   lad might have been the brother of the lady in the frame. But these
   humours were swift to pass; and the resemblance died along with them."

response 169 of 207:

Dec 7 19:38 UTC 1998

It's difficult to deduce the period from the quotes, but if the
author could have known London, that pins it down to late 19th
or earlier 20th century. The spelling of "humours" suggests that
the author is from somewhere in the British Commonwealth.

I'll guess Robert Louis Stevenson. The dates and nationality are
about right.

response 171 of 207:

Dec 7 21:22 UTC 1998

Stevenson is correct. This is one of the 'lesser known' short stories
published by Stevenson, titled _Olalla_, in 1885, when he was in poor
health in Bournemouth. During the same period he also wrote _Kidnapped_
and _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_.  Of course I picked
Olalla as being more obscure than those two.  I thought I had diverted
attention from Stevenson with the (less widely known) information that he
had lived (in San Francisco) near London (in Monterey) when London was ca.
3 years old. 

Your turn, John.

response 173 of 207:

Dec 8 15:11 UTC 1998

One hint for now: Author is dead American male.

response 175 of 207:

Dec 8 18:53 UTC 1998

a wild guess - JFK

response 177 of 207:

Dec 8 21:07 UTC 1998

Updike is indeed alive and still writing.

Not John Cheever, not JFK.

response 179 of 207:

Dec 9 01:42 UTC 1998

Not Robert Penn Warren.

response 181 of 207:

Dec 9 22:23 UTC 1998

Sounds like it might be Raymond Chandler (The lady in the lake?)

response 183 of 207:

Dec 10 01:02 UTC 1998

Shucks. Did they have the news at 10, then, because people went to bed
earlier?

response 185 of 207:

Dec 10 21:35 UTC 1998

So to zero in on dating, we need to know that it was late enough for TV news
and early enough that $200 was a lot of money for clothes.

response 187 of 207:

Dec 11 10:45 UTC 1998

To my knowledge John D Macdonald is still alive. But that may be the 
other one, I think there are two of them in the literary field. I know that
one of them is a rather obscure author of young-adult sci-fi books. Hmm, 
I'll have to do some checking on that the next time I'm at the library. 

response 189 of 207:

Dec 11 13:40 UTC 1998

No, John D. MacDonald did write some young adult science fiction novels.  
I have one of them, though I don't remember the name of it.  I'd read it 
as a kid, then later tracked it down in a used bookstore.

A lot of well-known authors have written science fiction.  Dean R. 
Koontz was a B-grade science fiction author in the 1950's and 60's.  
(They were *awful*.  They gave me hope; if those novels got published, I 
figured I too would be able to write salable science fiction.  When I 
discovered he was a best-selling horror writer, I was pretty surprised.)  
Howard Fast wrote some wonderful science fiction novelettes.

response 191 of 207:

Dec 11 19:37 UTC 1998

I happened to be in Dawn Treader a little while ago, and I looked to see 
if they had the MacDonald book I mentioned earlier.  They didn't, but 
they did have a few books in the science fiction section by John D. 
MacDonald.  I opened one of them, and saw a list of his other works, 
including the Travis McGee series.  This isn't proof of anything -- I 
wasn't familiar with the book I opened, or any other books I saw there 
by MacDonald -- but maybe it's some indication.