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Lloyd C. Alexander
| Lloyd C. Alexander | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Lloyd Chudley Alexander |
| Born | 30 January 1924 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Died | 17 May 2007 Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania |
| Nativity | United States |
| Religion | Protestant |
| Known for | Novelist |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| ASN | 33581483 |
| Rank | Private First Class |
| Camp Ritchie | Class 18 (13 April – 10 June 1944) |
| Section | 7A |
| Enlisted | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Team | MII 496-G |
{{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.
Lloyd Chudley Alexander (January 30, 1924 – May 17, 2007) was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages. His most famous work is The Chronicles of Prydain, a series of five high fantasy novels whose conclusion, The High King, was awarded the 1969 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature.
Biography[edit | edit source]
Lloyd Chudley Alexander (January 30, 1924 – May 17, 2007) was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages. His most famous work is The Chronicles of Prydain, a series of five high fantasy novels whose conclusion, The High King, was awarded the 1969 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature.
Alexander grew up in Pennsylvania during the Great Depression. He developed a passion for reading books and writing poetry. He attended college for only one term, believing that there was nothing more college could teach him. He enlisted in the United States Army and rose to be a staff sergeant in intelligence and counter-intelligence. He met his wife while he was stationed in France and studied French literature at the University of Paris. After returning to the United States with his new family, he struggled to make a living from writing until he published And Let the Credit Go (1955), his first autobiographical novel. His interest in Welsh mythology led to the publication of The Chronicles of Prydain.
Alexander was nominated twice for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award, and received the 1971 National Book Award for Children's Books for The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian and the 1982 National Book Award for Westmark. Alexander received three lifetime achievement awards before his death in 2007. The Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University contains a permanent Lloyd Alexander exhibit that showcases several items from his home office including his desk, typewriter, and manuscripts and editions of his books.
Alexander was born in Philadelphia on January 30, 1924, to Edna (née Chudley) and Alan Audley Alexander, and grew up in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a section of Upper Darby, just west of the city. He had an elder sister, Florence. His parents only read newspapers, but they did buy books "at the Salvation Army to fill up empty shelves". He taught himself to read around age four and skipped grades one and two at a private Quaker school. He and his friends played war, using equipment from World War I in their games. After his father Alan, a stockbroker, bankrupted in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Alexander attended public school, where he skipped yet another grade, entering seventh grade at age nine. Alexander read Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain and myths, especially King Arthur.
He attended West Chester State Teachers College, which he left after only one term because he did not find the curriculum rigorous enough. After dropping out of college, Alexander worked for six months in the mailroom of the Atlantic Refining Company. Alexander decided that adventure was a better school for a writer than college and enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was too clumsy with artillery to be sent to the front, and the sight of blood made him faint, making him unfit to work as a medic. With no prior musical experience, he briefly played the cymbals in a marching band in Texas. Shortly after, he was transferred to serve as a chaplain's assistant. He had the opportunity to study the French language, politics, customs, and geography at Lafayette College through the army. He was later moved to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, to receive specialized intelligence training in the United States Army Combat Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence Corps. At Camp Ritchie, Alexander rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. There he met war veterans, scholars, refugees, and members of the Cherokee tribe. He rose to be a staff sergeant in the corps.
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. His next assignment was the Paris office of the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) where he worked as a translator and an interpreter until the end of 1945. After the war, Alexander attended the University of Paris where he studied French literature and was fascinated by the poetry of Paul Éluard. Alexander called Éluard on the phone and showed him his English translations of Éluard's work. Éluard immediately named Alexander his sole English translator. Alexander also contacted Gertrude Stein, who advised him that becoming a writer was a difficult and discouraging process. 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. The three moved into the attic of his parents' home where Alexander spent twelve hours a day translating Éluard's works and writing his own.
For about fifteen years in Philadelphia, Alexander wrote primarily fiction, non-fiction, and translations for adults. Desperate for a job, he worked as a potter's apprentice for his sister. At the end of 1948, he 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 novels for seven years.
One of his short stories, "The Fantastic Symphony" (1949), published in the New Directions Annual, was a surrealistic piece inspired by Berlioz's notes on the Symphonie fantastique. Alexander's breakthrough came with his novel And Let the Credit Go (1955), his first autobiographical work, in which he focused on his experience as a bank messenger in his adolescence. He wrote his second novel, My Five Tigers (1956), about his cats, continuing the trend of writing about subjects familiar to him. 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). 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. 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". The novel imagines a cat who can visit its other lives in different time periods, which Alexander researched extensively. Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1964; reprinted as Send for Ryan) told stories of how William Michael Ryan saved animals as part of his job as a special agent for the ASPCA.
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. He once described it as being educational for him and "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." 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. In 1977 he published The Town Cats, which received a more favorable critical reception than The Wizard in the Tree. His next book, The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha, set in a fantasy world based on 15th century Persia, was published in 1978. It won the Silver Slate Pencil Award in Holland and the Austrian Book Award in Austria.
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 the 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. 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. Alexander's last novel, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, was published in August 2007.
Alexander helped create the children's literary magazine Cricket and served on its editorial board. He served on the library committee of World Book Encyclopedia in 1974 and in the board of directors in the Friends of the International Board on Books for Young People in 1982. Alexander maintained a rigorous working schedule, awakening at 4 a.m. And working until the late afternoon, afterwards enjoying his sole meal with his wife. He adhered to this routine even when he did not feel inspired, stating that he could not rely on inspiration alone. He corresponded with fans, who on occasion visited him in his home.
Alexander died on May 17, 2007, of cancer, a few weeks after the death of his wife of sixty-one years.
Research notes[edit | edit source]
- DEML
Gallery[edit | edit source]
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Technical record[edit | edit source]
| Field | Imported value |
|---|---|
| Approx Age at Death | 83 |
| Nara ASN | 33581483 |
| Nara Name | ALEXANDER LLOYD C |
| Nara State | 2 |
| Nara County | 45 |
| Nara POE | 3295 |
| Nara DOE | 20243 |
| Nara Grade Alpha | PVT |
| Nara Grade Code | 8 |
| Nara Branch Alpha | BI |
| Nara Branch Code | 0 |
| Branch | Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA |
| Nara Term or Enlistment | 5 |
| Term of enlistment | Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law |
| Defer. Date | 0 |
| Nara Source | 0 |
| Nara Nativity | 32 |
| Nativity.1 | PENNSYLVANIA |
| Nara Year of Birth | 24 |
| Nara Race | 1 |
| Nara Race Description | White citizen |
| Nara Education | 5 |
| Nara Civilian Occupation | 123 |
| Nara Marital Status | 6 |
| Nara Height (inches) | 68 |
| Nara Weight (lbs) | 117 |
| Class_ASN | 33581483 |
| Class_Name | ALEXANDER, Lloyd C. |
| match_method | asn_exact_name_exact |
| row_source | both |
| Census_HISTID | 544A2B08-0B09-4D76-A1DC-5CBC9F577290 |
| Census_State | PENNSYLVANIA |
| Census_Relate | Child |
| Census_Sex | Male |
| Census_Age | 16 |
| Census_BirthYear | 1924 |
| Census_Marital | Never married/single |
| Census_Race | White |
| Census_BPL | PENNSYLVANIA |
| Census_MBPL | 0 |
| Census_FBPL | 0 |
| Census_Educ | Grade 11 |
| Census_OCC | 995 |
Sources[edit | edit source]
- Wikipedia: Lloyd Alexander
- Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
- Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
- NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
- 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)