James Boyd (novelist)

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James Boyd (July 2, 1888 – February 25, 1944) was an American novelist, most famous for his

N.C. Wyeth
.

Early life and education

Boyd was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, into a wealthy coal and oil family. He was the son of John Yeomans Boyd and Eleanor Gilmore Herr Boyd, who were from North Carolina. He attended The Hill School.[1] He attended Princeton University where he wrote verse and fiction for the Tiger and was its managing editor in his senior year. After graduation in 1910, he studied at Trinity College and Cambridge.

Career

Boyd served overseas with the Army Ambulance Service in World War I. After World War I, he experienced ill health, and retired to Weymouth, a house his grandfather built in Southern Pines, North Carolina.[2] The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.[3]

Boyd's first book, Drums, was set in

Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924-1944.[5]
He wrote five historical novels, including Bitter Creek, which were thought to have elevated the genre through greater historical accuracy, psychological and sociological awareness, and formal craftsmanship.

In 1940, Boyd organized the Free Company of Players, a group of American writers. This was a coalition of talent that, despite the powerful opposition of right-wing conservative interests (who?), produced a series of original

Struthers Burt, and John Galsworthy
. In 1941, Boyd bought The Pilot, a regional newspaper.

Boyd died in 1944, at age 55, in Princeton, New Jersey, where he had traveled for a speaking engagement.[6]

Bibliography

  • Drums (1925)
  • Marching On (1927)
  • Long Hunt (1930)
  • Bitter Creek (1939)
  • Roll River (1935)
  • The Free Company Presents
  • Eighteen Poems (1944)
  • Old Pines and Other Stories

References

  1. ^ http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Boyd__James.html[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ H. McKelden Smith and Jim Sumner (n.d.). "James Boyd House" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2015-02-01.
  3. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  4. Harper & Row. pp. 124–5. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help
    )
  5. ^ Canby, Henry Seidel. "The 100 Outstanding Books of 1924 - 1944". Life Magazine, 14 August 1944. Chosen in collaboration with the magazine's editors.
  6. ^ "The Pilot History". The Pilot. Archived from the original on September 13, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2010.

External links

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