Robert Lewis Taylor

Born in Carbondale, Illinois, Taylor attended Southern Illinois University for one year.^[1] The university now houses his papers.^[2] He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor of arts in 1933.^{[citation needed]}

After college, he became a journalist and won awards for reporting.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[3] A Journey to Matecumbe was adapted in 1976 as the Disney movie Treasure of Matecumbe.^[4] His novel Professor Fodorski served as the basis for the 1962 musical All American.^[5]

Taylor died on September 30, 1998.^[6][7]

Taylor and his wife lived in Florida.^[8]

His daughter is Liz Peek.^[9]

• 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)