Robert Lewis Taylor

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Robert Lewis Taylor (September 24, 1912 – September 30, 1998) was an American writer who won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. His writing has been adapted into a television series, film, and musical.

Education

Born in Carbondale, Illinois, Taylor attended Southern Illinois University for one year.<ref name="Fischer">Template:Cite book</ref> The university now houses his papers.<ref name="Grace">Template:Cite book</ref> He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor of arts in 1933.Template:Cn

Career

After college, he became a journalist and won awards for reporting.Template:Citation needed In 1939, he became a writer for The New Yorker magazine, contributing biographical sketches. His work also appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and Reader's Digest.Template:Cn

From 1942 to 1946, Taylor served in the United States Navy during World War II. 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. He published them together as W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes. Taylor continued to write fiction and biographies, including one on Winston Churchill.Template:Cn

Taylor's 1958 novel, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, about a 14-year-old and his father in the California Gold Rush, won the Pulitzer Prize and was purchased for a film, but eventually became a television series instead.<ref name="identity">Template:Cite news</ref> A Journey to Matecumbe was adapted in 1976 as the Disney movie Treasure of Matecumbe.<ref name="movies">Template:Cite news</ref> His novel Professor Fodorski served as the basis for the 1962 musical All American.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Taylor died on September 30, 1998.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Taylor and his wife lived in Florida.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

His daughter is Liz Peek.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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 (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)

External links

• Robert Lewis Taylor Papers, 1947–1968, at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center