Lloyd Alexander - Writer

Writer

For about fifteen years in Philadelphia, Alexander wrote primarily fiction, non-fiction, and translations for adults. He wrote "novel after novel" for seven years before his first book was published (1955). That was "the story of a young person going out into the world for the first time and finding the world a very difficult place indeed. That's the story that all of us have to tell." During that time he wrote two non-fiction books for children, biographies for August Bondi and Aaron Lopez.

Alexander succeeded on his first try writing fantasy for children, which he later called "the most creative and liberating experience of my life". The book was Time Cat (1963), a fantasy inspired by one of his pet cats, Solomon. Solomon would visit the office while Alexander was working, but the author would never see him come or go.

Almost forty, 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 and to Welsh language whose medieval literature —Welsh mythology, especially the Mabinogion— was a source for The Chronicles of Prydain in particular. Those 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. Twenty years later, a Disney animated film, The Black Cauldron (1985) was based on the first two books, telling a combined Disney story.

After the success of Prydain, Alexander was chosen to be Author-in-Residence at Temple University from 1970 to 1974. 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."

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.

There was some controversy about The Fortune Tellers (1993), a picture book illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Some felt that the story was European in origin and therefore inappropriate for its African setting. But Alexander early on established his interest in the intersection of African and European history (as well as his political leanings) with his 1958 profile of August Bondi (August Bondi: Border Hawk), the Jewish radical abolitionist who rode with John Brown in Kansas attacking pro-slavery militants.

Alexander's last novel, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, was published in August 2007. "I have finished my life work," he said about the book before he died.

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."

In describing the influences on his writing, Alexander once said, "Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers. I loved all the world's mythologies: King Arthur was one of my heroes."