2600:4040:A3AB:8800:88A3:9E33:F259:D779: /* Works */

2025-06-13T05:35:12Z

Works

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{{short description|American novelist and writer}}
{{for|the New Zealand rugby player|Donald Cameron Hamilton}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Donald Hamilton
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| birth_name = Donald Bengtsson Hamilton
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1916|3|24}}
| birth_place = [[Uppsala]], Sweden
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2006|11|20|1916|3|24}}
| death_place = United States
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| occupation = Novelist, writer
| language = English
| nationality = Swedish American
| ethnicity =
| citizenship = Sweden, United States
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| genre = [[Spy fiction]], [[non-fiction]]
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| notableworks = Creator of [[Matt Helm]]
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'''Donald Bengtsson Hamilton''' (March 24, 1916 – November 20, 2006)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Finding Aid for the Donald Hamilton papers, 1945-1995|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6s2007cn/|access-date=2021-12-26|website=oac.cdlib.org}}</ref> was an American [[writer of novels]], short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally [[spy fiction]], but also [[crime fiction]] and [[Western fiction|western]]s, such as ''[[The Big Country (Hamilton novel)|The Big Country]]''. He is known best for his long-running [[Matt Helm]] series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency. The noted critic [[Anthony Boucher]] wrote: "Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of [[Dashiell Hammett]]; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told."<ref>''Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection'', by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler, New York, 1976, page 195.</ref>

==Life==
Hamilton was born on March 24, 1916, in [[Uppsala]], Sweden, to [[Bengt Hamilton|Dr. Bengt Leopold Knutsson Hamilton]] and Elise Franzisca Hamilton (née Neovius). On September 27, 1924, he boarded the S/S ''Stockholm'' with his mother and three sisters at the Port of Gothenburg, Sweden; the ship arrived at the Port of New York on October 6, 1924. The family's destination was Boston, Massachusetts, where they joined his father, Doctor Hamilton.

Donald attended the [[University of Chicago]] (receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1938), and served in the [[United States Navy Reserve]] during World War II as a chemist with the rank of Lieutenant.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://authorscalendar.info/hamilto.htm | title=Donald Hamilton }}</ref>

A long-time resident of [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]], Hamilton was a skilled outdoorsman and hunter who wrote non-fiction articles for outdoor magazines and published a book-length collection of them. For a number of years after leaving Santa Fe he lived on his own yacht, then relocated to Sweden, where he lived until his death in 2006. A number of his Matt Helm novels are situated in the Santa Fe area and American Southwest in general; as Hamilton developed an interest in boating, many of the books began to have a nautical component as well.

Hamilton began his writing career in 1946, submitting pieces to fiction magazines like ''[[Collier's Weekly]]'' and ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''. His first novel, ''[[Date With Darkness]]'', was published in 1947; during the next 46 years he published a total of 38 novels. His first three books were published in hardcover by [[Henry Holt and Company|Rinehart]]. After World War II, American publishers began to experiment with issuing original paperback fiction. Most of his early novels — published between 1954 and 1960 — were typical paperback originals of the era: fast-paced tales in paperbacks with lurid covers, whether suspense, spy, or western. The most interesting of them is, arguably, ''[[Assignment: Murder]]'', (alternate title: ''Assassins Have Starry Eyes''), in which a mathematician working on the design for a [[nuclear bomb]] has to save his kidnapped wife from a group of shadowy villains. Two classic western movies, ''[[The Big Country]]'' and ''[[The Violent Men]]'', were adapted from his western novels (''The Big Country'' and ''Smoky Valley'' respectively.)

More substantial was the Matt Helm series, published by [[Gold Medal Books|Gold Medal]] company, which began with ''[[Death of a Citizen]]'' in 1960 and comprised 27 books, ending in 1993 with ''[[The Damagers]]''. Helm, a wartime agent for a secret agency that specialized in assassinating Nazis, is drawn back, after 15 years as a civilian, into a [[post-war]] world of espionage and assassination. He narrates his adventures in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone with occasional humor. He describes gunfights, knife fights, torture, and (off-stage) sexual conquests with a carefully maintained professional detachment, like a [[pathologist]] dictating an autopsy report or a police officer describing an investigation. During the course of the series, this detachment comes to define Helm's character. He is a professional doing a job; the job is killing people. Hamilton completed one more Matt Helm novel, ''[[The Dominators (novel)|The Dominators]]'' in 2002, that has not been published.

The noted "[[Golden Age of Detective Fiction|Golden Age]]" mystery writer [[John Dickson Carr]] began reviewing books for ''[[Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine]]'' in 1969, and often praised thrillers of the time. According to Carr's biographer, "Carr found Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm to be 'my favorite secret agent,'" although Hamilton's books had little in common with Carr's. "The explanation may lie in Carr's comment that in espionage novels he preferred Matt Helm's [[Cloud cuckoo land]]. Carr never valued realism in fiction."<ref>''John Dickson Carr, The Man Who Explained Miracles'', by [[Douglas G. Greene]], New York, 1995, page 443.</ref>

Hamilton died while sleeping on November 20, 2006.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2007/04/donald-hamilton-dies.html |title= Donald Hamilton Dies |last=Pierce |first=J. Kingston |date=April 2, 2007 |access-date=May 27, 2014 |publisher=The Rap Sheet }}{{better source|need a better source than a blog|date=May 2014}}</ref> His papers are housed at the [[Charles E. Young Research Library]] at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Finding Aid for the Donald Hamilton papers, 1945-1995 |url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6s2007cn/ |website=Online Archive of California |publisher=University of California, Los Angeles |access-date=May 13, 2015}}</ref>

==Personal life==
He was married to Kathleen Hamilton (née Stick) from 1941 until her death in 1989. The couple had four children: Hugo, Elise, Gordon, and Victoria Hamilton.

==Works==

Series '''[[Matt Helm]]'''
* 1960 ''[[Death of a Citizen]]''
* 1960 ''[[The Wrecking Crew (novel)|The Wrecking Crew]]''
* 1961 ''[[The Removers]]''
* 1962 ''[[The Silencers (novel)|The Silencers]]''
* 1962 ''[[Murderers' Row (novel)|Murderer's Row]]''
* 1963 ''[[The Ambushers (novel)|The Ambushers]]''
* 1964 ''[[The Shadowers]]''
* 1964 ''[[The Ravagers (novel)|The Ravagers]]''
* 1965 ''[[The Devastators (Hamilton novel)|The Devastators]]''
* 1966 ''[[The Betrayers]]''
* 1968 ''[[The Menacers]]''
* 1969 ''[[The Interlopers (novel)|The Interlopers]]''
* 1971 ''[[The Poisoners (Hamilton novel)|The Poisoners]]''
* 1973 ''[[The Intriguers]]''
* 1974 ''[[The Intimidators]]''
* 1975 ''[[The Terminators (novel)|The Terminators]]''
* 1976 ''[[The Retaliators (novel)|The Retaliators]]''
* 1977 ''[[The Terrorizers]]''
* 1982 ''[[The Revengers (novel)|The Revengers]]''
* 1983 ''[[The Annihilators (novel)|The Annihilators]]''
* 1984 ''[[The Infiltrators]]''
* 1985 ''[[The Detonators]]''
* 1986 ''[[The Vanishers]]''
* 1987 ''[[The Demolishers]]''
* 1989 ''[[The Frighteners (novel)|The Frighteners]]''
* 1992 ''[[The Threateners]]''
* 1993 ''[[The Damagers]]''
* 2002 ''[[The Dominators (novel)|The Dominators]]'' (unpublished)

'''Other crime novels'''
* 1947 ''[[Date with Darkness]]''
* 1948 ''[[The Steel Mirror]]''
* 1954 ''[[Night Walker]]''
* 1955 ''[[Line of Fire (novel)|Line of Fire]]''
* 1956 ''[[Assignment: Murder|Assignment: Murder / Assassins Have Starry Eyes]]''
* 1980 ''The Mona Intercept''

'''Short stories'''
* 1947 ''[[Murder Twice Told]]'' (features two stories: ''Deadfall'' and ''The Black Cross'')<ref>table of contents</ref>

'''Westerns'''
* 1954 ''[[Smoky Valley]]''
* 1956 ''[[Mad River (novel)|Mad River]]''
* 1958 ''[[The Big Country (Hamilton novel)|The Big Country]]''
* 1960 ''[[The Man From Santa Clara|The Man From Santa Clara / The Two-Shoot Gun]]''
* 1960 ''[[Texas Fever (novel)|Texas Fever]]''
* 1955 ''[[The Violent Men]]'' (movie adaption)

'''Non-fiction'''
* 1970 ''[[On Guns and Hunting]]''
* 1980 ''[[Cruises With Kathleen|Cruises with Kathleen]]''

'''Editor'''
* 1967 ''[[Iron Men and Silver Stars]]''

==Movie adaptations==
''[[The Violent Men]]'', 1955; adaptation of ''[[Smoky Valley]]''.

''[[Five Steps to Danger]]'', 1957; adaptation of ''[[The Steel Mirror]]''.

''[[The Big Country]]'', 1958; adaptation of ''[[The Big Country (Hamilton novel)|''The Big Country'' (Hamilton novel)]]''.

General audiences may be more familiar with Matt Helm through a series of popular [[action-comedy]] movies produced during the late 1960s featuring [[Dean Martin]] in the title role. These farcical movies are based only slightly upon Hamilton's writings, which are much more realistic and grim.

* ''[[The Silencers (film)|The Silencers]]'', 1966
* ''[[Murderers' Row (film)|Murderers' Row]]'', 1966
* ''[[The Ambushers (film)|The Ambushers]]'', 1967
* ''[[The Wrecking Crew (1968 film)|The Wrecking Crew]]'', 1969

[[DreamWorks Pictures|DreamWorks]] optioned the movie rights to Hamilton's books in 2002 and began planning a more serious adaptation of the Matt Helm novels, but the project is currently in abeyance.

==Notes==
<references/>

==Sources==
* ''John Dickson Carr, The Man Who Explained Miracles'', by Douglas G. Greene, New York, 1995
*''Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection'', by [[Chris Steinbrunner]] and [[Otto Penzler]], New York, 1976, {{ISBN|0-07-061121-1}}

==External links==
* {{cite web |title=Donald Hamilton papers, 1945-1995 |url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6s2007cn/ |website=Online Archive of California |publisher=University of California, Los Angeles |access-date=May 13, 2015}}
* [http://www.matthelmbooks.com/ Matt Helm: The Unofficial Home Page]
* [http://www.jottings.ca/john/thriller_quik1.html#DonaldHamilton Thriller writer Donald Hamilton]
* [http://www.jottings.ca/john/thriller_writ1.html Writer at Work: Donald Hamilton, '' A long article in two parts. '']

{{Matt Helm}}

{{Donald Hamilton}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Donald}}
[[Category:1916 births]]
[[Category:2006 deaths]]
[[Category:American non-fiction outdoors writers]]
[[Category:American spy fiction writers]]
[[Category:American thriller writers]]
[[Category:Western (genre) writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Santa Fe, New Mexico]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from Uppsala]]
[[Category:Swedish emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:University of Chicago alumni]]
[[Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:United States Navy reservists]]
[[Category:Matt Helm]]

Donald Hamilton - Revision history

2600:4040:A3AB:8800:88A3:9E33:F259:D779: /* Works */