Robert Lewis Taylor

Born in Carbondale, Illinois, Taylor attended Southern Illinois University for one year.{{cite book |last=Fischer |first=Heinz D. |title=Novel / Fiction Awards 1917-1994 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter p. 159 |year=2012 |isbn=978-3-1109-7211-5}} The university now houses his papers.{{cite book |last=Grace |first=Fran |title=Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life |publisher=Indiana University Press p. 264 |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-2531-0833-3}} He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor of arts in 1933.{{cn|date=January 2024}}

After college, he became a journalist and won awards for reporting.{{citation needed|date=February 2014}} 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.{{cn|date=January 2024}}

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.{{cn|date=January 2024}}

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.{{cite news |url= https://www.wbur.org/npr/158771705/-books-that-shaped-america |title=How Books Shaped The American National Identity |work=WBUR-FM |date=August 14, 2012 |access-date=February 22, 2020}} A Journey to Matecumbe was adapted in 1976 as the Disney movie Treasure of Matecumbe.{{cite news |last=Taylor |first=Drew |url= https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/disney-plus-obscure-old-movies-and-tv-shows |title=15 Obscure Movies and TV Shows on Disney+ You Need to Check Out |work=Syfy Wire |date=November 13, 2019 |access-date=February 22, 2020}} His novel Professor Fodorski served as the basis for the 1962 musical All American.{{Cite web|title=All American Broadway @ Winter Garden Theatre - Tickets and Discounts|url=http://www.playbill.com/production/all-american-winter-garden-theatre-vault-0000011560|access-date=2021-09-21|website=Playbill|language=en}}

Taylor died on September 30, 1998.{{Cite news|last=Stewart|first=Barbara|date=1998-10-04|title=Robert Lewis Taylor Is Dead, Novelist and Biographer, 88|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/04/arts/robert-lewis-taylor-is-dead-novelist-and-biographer-88.html|access-date=2021-09-21|issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite news|last=Pearson|first=Richard|date=1998-10-05|title=ROBERT LEWIS TAYLOR DIES|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1998/10/05/robert-lewis-taylor-dies/155d7b23-d9d1-4eca-bba6-35b6477b1f31/|access-date=2021-09-21|issn=0190-8286}}

• 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)

{{reflist}}

• [http://archives.lib.siu.edu/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=2235 Robert Lewis Taylor Papers, 1947–1968], at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center

{{PulitzerPrize Fiction 1951–1975}}

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Category:1912 births

Category:1998 deaths

Category:Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners

Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II

Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni

Category:People from Carbondale, Illinois

Category:Novelists from Illinois

Category:The New Yorker staff writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:American male novelists

Category:Journalists from Illinois

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:American male journalists