Willard DeMille Price (28 July 1887 – 14 October 1983) was a Canadian-born American traveller, journalist and author.
Early life
Price was born to a family of devout
Methodists in
Peterborough, Ontario
Peterborough ( ) is a city on the Otonabee River in Ontario, Canada, about 125 kilometres (78 miles) northeast of Toronto. According to the 2021 Census, the population of the City of Peterborough was 83,651. The population of the Peterborough ...
. When he was four years old, his father took him
canoeing and
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
on
Stony Lake, near his home town; he later described this as his "first great adventure." He spent some time living on his grandfather's farm before moving to
Cleveland, Ohio. Price attended East High School and
Western Reserve University
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
* Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that i ...
where he funded his college degree by writing advertisements for local businesses and newspapers. During this time, he gained notoriety as a young Methodist leader and developed a taste for adventure on long trips during vacations.
Early career
__NOTOC__
On graduating in 1909, Price confounded expectations by choosing not to enter a seminary, instead spending a year preaching as an unordained pastor. He then resolved to experience the "workaday world", a decision that took him to New York and then London. In
Southwark, he developed a "painfully acute social awareness" while volunteering at a
settlement house
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
. This inspired Price to become "a social worker with a pen".
Returning to New York in 1911, Price won a scholarship to the
School of Philanthropy at Columbia University, where he acquired a
MA and
Litt.D. While there he wrote a number of campaigning newspaper and magazine articles including a first-hand account of the squalid conditions aboard a transatlantic liner, a survey of Newark's slums and an investigation of child labour conditions in a
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
iron and steel plant (with
Herschel V. Jones). Price also worked as publicity secretary of the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions, completed his thesis on immigration and edited the
journal
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
s ''Survey'' and ''World Outlook''.
Travel and writing
Price spent his later life as a "foreign correspondent and roving researcher" on behalf of newspapers, magazines, museums and societies (in particular the
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...
and the
American Museum of Natural History). He visited a total of 148 countries and circled the globe three times before his death.
Price documented these adventures in a series of adult non-fiction books, beginning with ''Rip Tide in the Southern Seas'' (1936). His early writing career focused in particular on Japan, where he lived from 1933 to 1938 and could see first-hand the country's militarization.
In 1999, Professor Laurie Barber of
Waikato University
, mottoeng = For The People
, established = 1964; years ago
, endowment = (31 December 2021)
, budget = NZD $263.6 million (31 December 2020)
, chancellor = Sir Anand Satyanand, GNZM, QSO, KStJ
, vice_chancellor = Neil Quigley
, city ...
(
Hamilton, New Zealand
Hamilton ( mi, Kirikiriroa) is an inland city in the North Island of New Zealand. Located on the banks of the Waikato River, it is the seat and most populous city of the Waikato region. With a territorial population of , it is the country's ...
) suggested that Price may have spied for the United States.
Indeed, Price admits to having done so in ''My Own Life of Adventure'', one of two autobiographies he wrote in his later years. What remains unclear is whether Price was on the payroll of military intelligence.
''Adventure'' series
Price's travels also provided inspiration for his popular ''
Adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
'' series of novels for young readers, in which teenage
zoologists
This is a list of notable zoologists who have published names of new taxa under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
A
* Abe – Tokiharu Abe (1911–1996)
* Abeille de Perrin, Ab. – Elzéar Abeille de Perrin (1843–1910)
* ...
Hal and Roger Hunt
Hal and Roger Hunt are fictional characters appearing in the children's '' Adventure Series'' novels, by Canadian-born American author Willard Price. The sons of a world-renowned animal collector John Hunt, Hal and Roger have grown up alongside ...
travel the world capturing wild animals. Price wrote the series for boys, "hoping that when they got old enough to hunt they would leave their guns at home."
Shortly before his death, Price commented that:
My aim in writing the ''Adventure'' series for young people was to lead them to read by making reading exciting and full of adventure. At the same time I want to inspire an interest in wild animals and their behavior. Judging from the letters I have received from boys and girls around the world, I believe I have helped open to them the worlds of books and natural history.
In 2006, the Price family sold the
copyrights
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
and related legal rights for the fourteen
''Adventure'' series titles, plus the right to use Price's name, to London-based
Fleming Literary Management for an undisclosed six-figure sum.
Personal life
Price married Eugenia Reeve in 1914. They had one son, Robert DeMille Price (1915-2005). Eugenia died in 1928.
["United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2011", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:4CTH-4F6Z : 14 December 2019), Euzenia Reeve Price] Price later married Mary Selden, who would accompany him on many of his travels throughout the world.
Bibliography
''Adventure'' series
* ''
Amazon Adventure
''Amazon Adventure'' is a 1949 children's novel by the Canadian- American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts an expedition to the Amazon River to capture animals for their father' ...
'' (1949)
* ''
South Sea Adventure'' (1952)
* ''
Underwater Adventure'' (1954)
* ''
Volcano Adventure'' (1956)
* ''
Whale Adventure'' (1960)
* ''
African Adventure'' (1963)
* ''
Elephant Adventure'' (1964)
* ''
Safari Adventure
''Safari Adventure'' is a 1966 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. The book was illustrated by Charles Sur.
Plot
A gang of poachers led by a man n ...
'' (1966)
* ''
Lion Adventure'' (1967)
* ''
Gorilla Adventure
''Gorilla Adventure'' is a 1969 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts an expedition to capture a giant mountain gorilla for a circus.
The ...
'' (1969)
* ''
Diving Adventure
''Diving Adventure'' is a 1970 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be act ...
'' (1970)
* ''
Cannibal Adventure'' (1972)
* ''
Tiger Adventure'' (1979)
* ''
Arctic Adventure'' (1980)
Adult travel books
* ''
A Real Revolution in China'' (1914)
* ''
Ancient Peoples at New Tasks'' (1918, for the
Missionary Education Movement)
* ''
The Negro Around the World'' (1925)
* ''
Rip Tide in the South Seas'' (1936)
* ''
The South Sea Adventure: Through Japan’s Equatorial Empire'' (1936, published in the US as ''Pacific Adventure'')
** Second edition: ''
Japan's Islands of Mystery'' (1944)
* ''
Japan Reaches Out'' (1938)
* ''
Japan's New Horizons'' (1938)
* ''
Children of the Rising Sun'' (1938)
* ''
Where Are You Going, Japan?'' (1938)
* ''
Japan Rides the Tiger'' (1942)
* ''
Japan's Islands of Mystery'' (1944). "For the most part new, but incorporates brief sections of the author's earlier ''Riptide in the South Seas'', revised to date." Describes
Micronesia
Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...
at the time that the islands were being attacked by the US during WW2.
* ''
Japan and the Son of Heaven'' (1945)
* ''
Key to Japan'' (1946)
* ''
Roving South: Rio Grande to Patagonia'' (1948)
* ''
I Cannot Rest from Travel: An Autobiography of Adventure in Seventy Lands'' (1952)
* ''
Journey by Junk: Japan After MacArthur'' (1953)
* ''
Adventures in Paradise;: Tahiti and Beyond'' (1955)
* ''
Roaming Britain: 8000 Miles Through England, Scotland and Wales'' (1958) (UK title: ''Innocents in Britain'')
* ''
The Amazing Amazon'' (1954)
* ''
Incredible Africa'' (1962)
* ''
The Amazing Mississippi'' (1963)
* ''
Rivers I Have Known'' (1965)
* ''
America's Paradise Lost'' (1966)
* ''
Odd Way Round the World'' (1969)
* ''
The Japanese Miracle and Peril'' (1971)
* ''
My Own Life of Adventure: Travels in 148 Lands'' (1982)
See also
Notes
References
*
External links
Photo of Price with his wife, from the archives of the Trust Territory of the Pacific*
ttp://www.brazilnow.info/books01.php?ID_Books_Title=62 Review of his book The Amazing Amazon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, Willard
1887 births
1983 deaths
Canadian children's writers
American children's writers
Columbia University School of Social Work alumni
Canadian emigrants to the United States