Dell, Floyd James (1887–1969)

US author, editor, and social critic. He wrote for newspapers in Iowa and Chicago before moving to New York City's Greenwich Village where he wrote left-wing plays and novels about those who sacrifice idealistic dreams for conventional realities.

He was born in Barry, Illinois. He joined the Socialist Party at age 16, and worked as a reporter and editor at several publications in Iowa and Chicago. His Chicago studio was a gathering place for many of the literary figures who contributed to the ‘Chicago Renaissance’. In New York, he edited Masses (1914–17), but the government suspended the publication because of its opposition to the USA's role in World War I. Indicted under the Espionage Act, he was never convicted. He became an editor of Liberator and then New Masses.