Robert Lewis Taylor (September 24, 1912 – September 30, 1998) was an American writer and winner of the 1959
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
.
Education
Born in
Carbondale, Illinois
Carbondale is a city in Jackson and Williamson Counties, Illinois, United States, within the Southern Illinois region informally known as "Little Egypt". The city developed from 1853 because of the stimulation of railroad construction into the ...
, Taylor attended
Southern Illinois University for one year.
The university now houses his papers.
He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor of arts in 1933.
Career
After college, he became a journalist and won awards for reporting. In 1939, he became a writer for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine, contributing biographical sketches. His work also appeared in ''
The Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'' and ''
Reader's Digest''.
From 1942 to 1946, Taylor served in the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. During his service, he wrote numerous stories and ''Adrift in a Boneyard'', an extended fiction about survivors of a disaster. In 1949,''The Saturday Evening Post'' commissioned a series of biographical sketches of
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields's comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathe ...
. He published them together as ''W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes.'' Taylor continued to write fiction and biographies, including one on
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
.
Taylor's 1958 novel ''
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Lewis Taylor, which was later made into a short-running television series on ABC from September 1963 through March 1964, featuring Kurt Russell as Jaimie, D ...
'', about a 14-year-old and his father in the
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
, won the Pulitzer Prize and was purchased for a film, but eventually became a television series, instead.
''A Journey to Matecumbe'' was adapted in 1976 as the Disney movie ''
Treasure of Matecumbe
''Treasure of Matecumbe'' is a 1976 American adventure western film directed by Vincent McEveety and produced by Walt Disney Productions. It was based on the novel ''A Journey to Matecumbe'' by Robert Lewis Taylor. The filming locations were in ...
''.
His novel ''Professor Fodorski'' served as the basis for the 1962 musical ''
All American''.
Taylor died on September 30, 1998.
Bibliography
*''Adrift in a Boneyard'' (1948)
* ''Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief'' (1948)
* ''W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes'' (1949)
* ''Professor Fodorski'' (1950)
* ''The Running Pianist'' (1950)
* ''Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness'' (1952)
* ''The Bright Sands'' (1954)
* ''
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Lewis Taylor, which was later made into a short-running television series on ABC from September 1963 through March 1964, featuring Kurt Russell as Jaimie, D ...
'' (1958)
* ''Center Ring'' (1960)
* ''A Journey to Matecumbe'' (1961)
* ''Two Roads to Guadalupe'' (1964)
* ''Vessel of Wrath: The Life and Times of Carry Nation'' (1966)
* ''A Roaring in the Wind'' (1978)
* ''Niagara'' (1980)
References
External links
Robert Lewis Taylor Papers, 1947–1968 at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
1912 births
1998 deaths
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners
United States Navy personnel of World War II
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
People from Carbondale, Illinois
Novelists from Illinois
The New Yorker staff writers
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
Journalists from Illinois
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
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