Lloyd Alexander

Alexander was born in Philadelphia on January 30, 1924 and grew up in Drexel Hill, a section of Upper Darby just west of the city.[5] His father was a stockbroker bankrupted in the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[6] His parents only read newspapers, but they did buy books "at the Salvation Army to fill up empty shelves."[7] Lloyd read Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain and myths, especially King Arthur.[8] In addition to being interested in art, Alexander wanted to become an Episcopalian priest; however, his family could not afford to send him to Divinity School.[9] Passionate about writing, Alexander believed he could preach and worship God through his writing and his art.[10] In high school, he began writing romantic poetry modeled after the work of nineteenth-century poets and writing narrative short stories; however, he failed to acquire interest from publishers.[11] His parents found him a job as a bank messenger, which inspired a satire that would become his first book published fifteen years later, And Let the Credit Go (1955).[7] He graduated at age sixteen in 1940 from Upper Darby High School, where he was inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in 1995.[12]

He attended West Chester State Teachers College for only one term because he did not find the curriculum rigorous enough.[13] After dropping out of college, Alexander worked for six months in the mailroom of the Atlantic Refining Company.[14] Alexander judged that adventure, not college, was the best school for a writer and that US Army participation in World War II was an opportunity. The army shipped him to Texas where he played cymbals in the band and served as a chaplain's assistant. He had the opportunity to study French language, politics, customs, and geography at Lafayette College through the army.[15] He was later moved to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, to receive specialized intelligence training.[16] He rose to be a staff sergeant in intelligence and counterintelligence.[17]

Alexander was stationed in Wales and England briefly and then was assigned to the 7th army in eastern France where he translated radio messages for six months.[18] His next assignment was for the Paris office of the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) where he worked as a translator and an interpreter until the end of 1945.[18] After the war, Alexander attended the University of Paris where he studied French literature and was fascinated by the poetry of Paul Éluard. Alexander managed to arrange a visit with Éluard and showed him his English translations of his work. Éluard immediately named Alexander his sole English translator.[18] In Paris, he met Janine Denni who had a young daughter named Madeleine. Alexander and Denni were married on January 8, 1946, and soon moved to Philadelphia.[19] The three moved into the attic of his parents home where Alexander spent twelve hours a day translating Éluard's work and writing his own works.[20]

For about fifteen years in Philadelphia, Alexander wrote primarily fiction, non-fiction, and translations for adults. Desperate for a job, Alexander worked as a potter's apprentice for his sister Florence. At the end of 1948, Alexander started writing advertising copy and he began to receive more royalties for his translations, leading him to purchase a house for his family in Kellytown. However, he lost his job after three months, requiring his wife to take up employment in a textile mill to make ends meet. Alexander continued to write diligently, though no publishers bought his work for seven years.[21] Alexander's breakthrough came with his novel And Let the Credit Go (1955), his first autobiographical work which he focused on his experience as a bank messenger in his adolescence.[22] He wrote his second novel My Five Tigers (1956) about his cats, continuing the trend of writing about subjects familiar to him.[23] He found work as a copyeditor and a cartoonist where he finished his last four adult publications. He wrote two semi-autobiographical novels: Janine is French (1959) and My Love Affair with Music (1960). Alexander co-authored Park Avenue Vet (1960) with Louis Camuti, who specialized in treating cats. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals subsequently commissioned their history, which Alexander wrote as Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1964) .[23] During that time he wrote two non-fiction books for children, biographies for August Bondi and Aaron Lopez commissioned by the Jewish Publication Society, the former of which won the National Jewish Book Award in 1959.[24][25][26] Alexander's subsequent novel was his first of the fantasy genre: Time Cat (1963). He later called it "the most creative and liberating experience of my life".[8] The novel imagines a cat who can visit its other lives in different time periods, which Alexander researched extensively.[27]

Almost forty years old, he then specialized in children's fantasy, the genre of his best-known works. His wartime tenure in Wales introduced him to castles and scenery that would inspire settings for many of his books.[8] Alexander was particularly fascinated with Welsh mythology, especially the Mabinogion. The plot for The Book of Three is based on a fragment from the Myvyrian Archaiology. Alexander signed a book deal with Henry Holt and Company for a trilogy called The Sons of Llyr.[28][7] Alexander resisted simplifying the Welsh names, stating that they gave the book a certain mood and strangeness.Template:SfnJacobs After the release of the first novel, The Book of Three (1964), the series became known as The Chronicles of Prydain. The second book of the series, The Black Cauldron, followed in 1965.[29] After beginning the third book The Castle of Llyr (1966), Alexander decided his story needed to be told in four books, not three, and he planned his fourth and final novel The High King of Prydain. During this time he also worked at the Delaware Valley Announcer as an associate editor.[29] After having a near-death experience, Alexander hastily finished The High King, concerned he would be unable to finish his saga. However, his editor Ann Durell suggested that he write a fourth book in-between The Castle of Llyr and The High King (1968); this book became Taran Wanderer (1967).[30] The five novels detail the adventures of a young man named Taran, who dreams of being a sword-bearing hero but has only the title Assistant Pig-Keeper. He progresses from youth to maturity and must finally choose whether to be High King of Prydain. Alexander also wrote two spin-off children's books from the Prydain series Coll and His White Pig (1965) and The Truthful Harp (1967).[31] Alexander won the Newbery Medal for The High King in 1969.[31]

Alexander's novel The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian (1970) was rejected after its first submission, and Alexander rewrote it three times before it was published.[32] It won the National Book Award in 1971.[33] He published two picture books: The King's Fountain (1971) for which he collaborated with the author Ezra Jack Keats, and The Four Donkeys (1972). He wrote the novel The Cat Who Wished to be a Man in 1973.[33] The same year Alexander published The Foundling: And Other Tales of Prydain, a companion book to the Prydain series.[33] After the success of Prydain, Alexander was chosen to be author-in-residence at Temple University from 1970 to 1974.[34] He once described it as being educational for him and as "rather like being a visiting uncle, who has a marvelous time with his nephews and nieces, then goes off leaving the parents to cope with attacks of whooping cough, mending socks and blackmailing the kids to straighten up the mess in their rooms."[35] Alexander wrote The Wizard in the Tree while suffering from depression and published it in 1975. The character Arbican was based on Alexander and his personal struggles.[36] In 1977 Alexander published The Town Cats, which received more favorable critical reception than The Wizard in the Tree.[36] His next book The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha, set in a fantasy world based on 15th century Persia, was published in 1978.[37] It won the Silver Slate Pencil Award in Holland and the Austrian Book Award in Austria.[37]

Alexander's other fiction series are Westmark (1981 to 1984) and Vesper Holly (1987 to 1990 and 2005). Westmark features a former printer's apprentice involved in rebellion and civil war in a fictional European kingdom around 1800. Vesper Holly is a wealthy and brilliant Philadelphia orphan who has adventures in various fictional countries during the 1870s.[lower-alpha 1] There was some controversy about The Fortune-Tellers (1992), a picture book illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Some felt that the story was European in origin and therefore inappropriate for its African setting.[38] Alexander's last novel, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, was published in August 2007.[39] According to Dictionary of Literary Biography, Alexander's books had "the special depth and insight provided by characters who not only act, but think, feel and struggle with the same kinds of problems that confuse and trouble people in the twentieth century."[7] Alexander helped create the children's literary magazine Cricket.[40] Alexander has indicated that he modeled the bard character Fflewddur Fflam in The Chronicles of Prydain partly after himself: "Rumor has is that we have very similar personalities. I will neither confirm nor deny that".[41] Alexander died on May 17, 2007, of cancer,[42][43][44][45] a few weeks after the death of his wife of sixty-one years.[25] He is buried at Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill.[46]

He first garnered significant critical acclaim with his The Chronicles of Prydain series. The second volume (The Black Cauldron) was a runner-up for the 1966 Newbery Medal; the fourth (Taran Wanderer) was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; the fifth and concluding volume (The High King) won the 1969 Newbery.[47] The Newbery Medal from the American Library Association annually recognizes one book as the "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children".[2] For his contribution as a children's writer, Alexander was U.S. nominee in 1996 and again in 2008 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books.[48][49] Many of Alexander's later books were praised. The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian won the 1971 National Book Award in category Children's Books[3] and in 1982 Westmark also won a National Book Award.[4][lower-alpha 2] The Fortune-Tellers, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, won the 1992 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in the Picture Book category.[50] Alexander was included in the 1972 third volume of the HW Wilson reference series, Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators[40]—early in his career as a children's writer, but after Prydain was complete.[51] He received at least three lifetime achievement awards. In 1991 the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book awarded him the Pennbook Lifetime Achievement Award.[52] In 2001 he received the inaugural Parents' Choice Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.[53] In 2003 Alexander received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.[54]

On January 28, 2010 an exhibit opened at the Harold B. Lee Library on the campus of Brigham Young University, displaying several items from Alexander's home office, which he referred to as "the Box." Items include manuscripts, editions of all his books, his violin, typewriter, and desk.[55] On October 19, 2012 a documentary chronicling the life and writings of Alexander was released.[56] The film is titled "Lloyd Alexander".[57] On September 23, 2014 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the series, Henry Holt published a special "50th Anniversary Edition" of The Book of Three.[58]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Lloyd Alexander

• Lloyd Alexander at publisher Henry Holt
• Lloyd Alexander at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Lloyd Alexander at Find a Grave
• Lloyd Alexander at Library of Congress Authorities, with 78 catalog records
• Lloyd Alexander papers, MSS 6833 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University