View source for Conrad Richter

{{short description|American novelist}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Conrad Richter
| image         = Conrad Richter.jpg
| birth_name    =  Conrad Michael Richter
| birth_date    = {{birth date|mf=yes|1890|10|13}}
| birth_place   = [[Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania|Pine Grove, Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| death_date    = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1968|10|30|1890|10|13}}
| death_place   = [[Pottsville, Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| occupation    = Novelist
| years_active  = 1924–1968
| known_for     = ''[[The Sea of Grass]]'', ''[[The Light in the Forest]]'', ''[[The Town (1950 novel)|The Town]]'', [[The Awakening Land trilogy|The Awakening Land]]
| spouse        = Harvena Achenbach (died 1972)
| children      = 1
}}
'''Conrad Michael Richter''' (October 13, 1890 – October 30, 1968) was an American novelist whose lyrical work is concerned largely with life on the American frontier in various periods. His novel ''[[The Town (1950 novel)|The Town]]'' (1950), the last story of his trilogy ''[[The Awakening Land trilogy|The Awakening Land]]'' about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]].<ref name=pulitzer/> His novel ''[[The Waters of Kronos]]'' won the 1961 [[National Book Award for Fiction]].<ref name=nba1961/> Two collections of short stories were published [[posthumous book|posthumously]] during the 20th century, and several of his novels have been reissued during the 21st century by academic presses.

==Early life==
Conrad Michael Richter was born in 1890 in [[Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania|Pine Grove, Pennsylvania]], near [[Pottsville, Pennsylvania|Pottsville]], to John Absalom Richter, a Lutheran minister, and Charlotte Esther (née Henry) Richter. Coming from a long line of [[Pennsylvania Dutch]] ancestors,<ref>{{cite book |last=Richter |first=Conrad Michael |title=The Free Man |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |year=2013 |orig-date=First published 1943 |isbn=978-0-8041-5098-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bVf1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT7 |quote=The author wishes to acknowledge his own Pennsylvania Dutch origins of mingled German, English, French, Scots-Irish and other blood that has been in America from 100 to 250 years. |access-date=2024-01-27}}</ref> his grandfather, uncle and great-uncle were also [[Lutheran]] ministers, and descended from German colonial immigrants. As a child, Richter lived with his family in several small central Pennsylvania mining towns, where he encountered descendants of pioneers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who shared family stories. These inspired him later to write historical fiction set in changing American frontiers. Attending local public schools, Richter finished his formal education when he graduated high school at age fifteen.<ref name="ohioana">[http://www.ohioana-authors.org/richter/index.php Conrad Richter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201224320/http://www.ohioana-authors.org/richter/index.php |date=2017-02-01 }}. Ohioana Authors</ref>

==Early career, marriage and move to New Mexico==
At the age of 19, Richter started working as an editor of a local weekly newspaper, the [[Patton, Pennsylvania]] ''Courier''. In 1911 Richter relocated to [[Cleveland, Ohio]], and worked as the private secretary to a wealthy manufacturing family. Richter married Harvena Maria Achenbach in 1915. They had their only child, Harvena Richter, in 1917. Richter worked subsequently for a small publishing company, initiated a juvenile magazine, and started writing short stories. During the 1930s, he also performed two brief stints as a [[screenwriter]] for [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios]] in [[Hollywood, California]].<ref name="johnson"/>

Richter continued writing and trying to sell short stories.<ref name="ohioana"/> In 1913, a young Conrad Richter sent manuscripts to literary editor [[Frederic Taber Cooper]]. Responding to Richter’s letter, Cooper writes that he does not give “gratuitous opinions on manuscripts, either to friends or strangers ... I suspect that your main difficulty is that, in straining after originality, you fail to make your stories ring true. Try to be simpler.”<ref>[https://orbis.library.yale.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=13565354 Ravi D. Goel Collection of Frederic Taber Cooper]. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.</ref> His short story "Brothers of No Kin," published in ''[[The Forum (defunct magazine)|Forum]]'' magazine in 1914,<ref name="ohioana"/> was included in the "Roll of Honor for 1914" of American stories by [[Edward J. O'Brien]], editor of the ''Best Short Stories of 1915.''<ref name="obrien"/> O'Brien wrote in his "Introduction" that Richter's story was the best of all those published in 1914; the editor was explicitly concerned with the development of an "American literature" and considered Richter as integral to this.<ref name="obrien">[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20303/20303-h/20303-h.htm Edward J. O'Brien (editor), "Introduction", ''Best Short Stories of 1915''], Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1915, e-text online at Gutenberg Project</ref> This short story was re-issued as the title story of a posthumous collection published in 1973.

In 1928 Richter relocated to [[Albuquerque]], [[New Mexico]], for the sake of his wife's health.<ref name="johnson">[http://www.psupress.org/Justataste/samplechapters/justataste_johnson.html David R. Johnson, ''Conrad Richter''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720154315/http://www.psupress.org/Justataste/samplechapters/justataste_johnson.html |date=2008-07-20 }}, Penn State Press, 2001</ref> During this period, he also collected much material from which he created short stories about the Southwest frontier days. By 1933, Richter and his wife had returned to live in his hometown of [[Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania|Pine Grove, Pennsylvania]]. They subsequently alternated between Pine Grove, Albuquerque, and Florida.<ref name="psupress">[http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02240-X.html Overview, Paperback version of ''The Waters of Kronos'', Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140508030239/http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02240-X.html |date=2014-05-08 }}</ref>

==Writing career==
During the early 1930s, Richter had numerous stories published in [[pulp magazines]] such as ''Triple-X'', ''Short Stories'', ''Complete Stories'', ''Ghost Stories'', and ''Blue Book''.<ref>[http://amsaw.org/amsaw-ithappenedinhistory-101304-richter.html ''Conrad Richter'' (American Society of Authors and Writers)]</ref><ref>[https://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=25509 ''Conrad Richter author spotlight''(Random House, Inc.)]</ref> His ''Early Americana and Other Stories'' (1936) was considered his first successful book.<ref name="psupress"/>

He persisted with his work, gradually writing and publishing full-length novels. Richter set his novels in different periods of American history on its changing frontier. He may be best known for ''[[The Sea of Grass]]'' (1936), set in late nineteenth-century [[New Mexico]], and featuring conflict between ranchers and farmers. It was later adapted as a movie [[The Sea of Grass (film)|of the same name]], directed by [[Elia Kazan]] and featuring [[Katharine Hepburn]] and [[Spencer Tracy]], released in 1947.

Richter's novel ''[[The Light in the Forest]]'' (1953), set in late eighteenth-century Pennsylvania and Ohio, featured challenges faced by a young white man who had become an assimilated [[Lenape people|Lenape]] Amerindian after being taken captive as a child. After the boy was returned as a youth to white culture, he was considered suspicious. This novel also became very popular and had a second life as a [[The Light in the Forest (film)|movie]], released in 1958. Richter returned to the topic of the white child raised in an alien culture in his later novel ''A Country of Strangers'' (1966). As noted by Ernest Cady in his review in the ''[[Columbus Dispatch]]'', both books were written from the point of view of Indians. He wrote of Richter,

<blockquote>He simply tells how he thinks things were for both Indians and whites, in a hard time of violence and danger and change on a raw frontier. And does it so convincingly that the reader senses that this indeed, is how it must have been.<ref name="ohioana"/></blockquote>

During this period, Richter also published the novels of his trilogy [[The Awakening Land trilogy|The Awakening Land]], about the Ohio frontier: ''[[The Trees (Richter novel)|The Trees]]'' (1940), ''[[The Fields (novel)|The Fields]]'' (1946), and ''[[The Town (1950 novel)|The Town]]'' (1950). In 1947 he won the Ohioana Book Award for ''The Fields.''<ref name="ohioana"/> ''The Town'' was awarded the [[Pulitzer Prize]] in 1951.<ref name=pulitzer>[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction "Fiction"], ''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-03-28.</ref> In a review of the last novel, [[Louis Bromfield]], also an Ohio writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, wrote of the trilogy:

<blockquote>the three books are not only concerned with Sayward and her family but the growth and the astonishingly rapid development of a whole area which has played a key role in the nation's history… Mr. Richter has reproduced the quality and the speech of these people so well that a thousand years from now, one may read his books and know exactly what these people were like and what it was like to have lived in an era when within three or four generations a frontier wilderness turned into one of the great industrial areas of the earth…. 'The Town' stands on its own as an entity and may be read on its own as a full, rich and comprehensive novel based upon the lives of ordinary people, brave and ever heroic in their own small way...<ref name="ohioana"/>
</blockquote>

The trilogy was first published in one volume in 1966 by [[Alfred A. Knopf]]. It was adapted as a TV miniseries [[The Awakening Land|of the same name]] in 1978, in which several plot changes were made as a result of the changing social culture of the time, especially concerning race and sexuality. 
 
Richter's short story, "Doctor Hanray's Second Chance", first published in the magazine ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' in 1950 (June 10),<ref name=isfdb/> has a theme of reconciling with the past. Richter returned to this theme in his 1960 autobiographical novel, ''The Waters of Kronos'' (Chronos). ([[Chronos]] was the ancient Greek personification of Time.) This novel won the U.S. [[National Book Award]] in 1961.<ref name=nba1961>[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1961 "National Book Awards – 1961"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved 2012-03-28. (With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)</ref>

The short story "Doctor Hanray" was republished in the anthology, ''The Saturday Evening Post Fantasy Stories'' (1951) and in several later [[speculative fiction]] anthologies published by the ''Post'' and others.<ref name=isfdb/> The [[Internet Speculative Fiction Database]] catalogs five of Richter's stories, including a very early one, "The Head of His House", from a 1917 anthology, ''The Grim Thirteen'' ([[Dodd, Mead]]).<ref name=isfdb>{{isfdb name|20255}} (ISFDB). Retrieved 2013-11-19.</ref>

After Richter's death, two short story collections were published posthumously. Additionally, several of his novels have been reissued by academic presses. When ''The Waters of Kronos'' was reissued in paperback format in 2003, one reviewer wrote,

{{quote|To celebrate the reappearance of such a worthy novel may be an expression of regional patriotism, but it should also be an opportunity to think about our own small towns, our own haunted memories, and our own quest for the meaning of the past.|Jeffrey S. Wood, ''Cumberland County History''<ref name="psupress"/>}}

==Bibliography==
*''Early Americana'' (short stories) (1936)
*''[[The Sea of Grass]]'' (1936)
*''[[The Trees (Richter novel)|The Trees]]'' (1940)
*''Tacey Cromwell'' (1942)
*''The Free Man'' (1943)
*''[[The Fields (novel)|The Fields]]'' (1946)
*''Always Young and Fair'' (1947)
*''[[The Town (1950 novel)|The Town]]'' (1950)
*''[[The Light in the Forest]]'' (1953)
*''The Mountain on the Desert'' (1955)
*''The Lady'' (1957)
*''[[The Waters of Kronos]]'' (1960/2003)
*''A Simple Honorable Man'' (1962)
*''The Grandfathers'' (1964)
*''A Country of Strangers'' (1966)
*''[[The Awakening Land trilogy|The Awakening Land]]'' (trilogy in single volume, 1966/1991 revised paperback edition/2017 trade paperback editions reprinted from original Knopf editions)
*''The Aristocrat'' (1968)
*''Brothers of No Kin and Other Stories'' (posthumous short story collection, 1973)
*''The Rawhide Knot and Other Stories'' (posthumous short story collection, 1985)

The Sea of Grass, The Trees and Tacey Cromwell were published as [[Armed Services Edition]]s during WWII.

==Legacy and honors==
Richter received national and regional literary awards, and several honorary doctorates.
*1937 – [[National Book Award]] nomination for ''[[The Sea of Grass]]''.
*1942 – Gold Medal for Literature from Society of Libraries of New York University, for ''The Sea of Grass'' and ''[[The Trees (Richter novel)|The Trees]]''.
*1947 – [[Ohioana Library Medal]] for ''[[The Fields (novel)|The Fields]]''.
*1951 – [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] for ''[[The Town (1950 novel)|The Town]]''.
*1959 – National Institute of Arts and Letters grant for literature.
*1959 – [[Maggie Award]] for ''The Lady''.
*1961 – [[National Book Award]] for ''The Waters of Kronos''.
*1944 – Litt.D., [[Susquehanna University]].
*1958 – Litt.D., [[University of New Mexico]].
*1966 – Litt.D., [[Lafayette College]].
*1966 – LL.D., [[Temple University]].
*1966 – L.H.D., [[Lebanon Valley College]].
*1967 – [[Florence R. Head Memorial Award]] from the [[Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana Association]].

==References==
{{Reflist |25em }}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080926155044/http://www.mansker.org/misc/richter.htm Conrad Richter and the Minsker Stories]
*[http://jchoma.tripod.com/richter.html Early Americana: A Conrad Richter Tribute Page]
* {{LCAuth|n50053399|Conrad Richter|46|}}
* {{Librivox author |id=17697}}

{{PulitzerPrize Fiction 1951–1975}}
{{NBA for Fiction 1950–1974}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richter, Conrad}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
[[Category:1968 deaths]]
[[Category:American people of German descent]]
[[Category:National Book Award winners]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners]]
[[Category:Writers from Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:American historical novelists]]
[[Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]