Francis Van Wyck Mason

Background

Francis Van Wyck Mason was born on November 11, 1901 in Chicago. He was the son of Francis Payne Mason and Ermagarde Coffin. As a boy he lived in Paris and Berlin with his grandfather, Frank H. Mason, American consul general in those cities.

Education

The outbreak of World War I stranded him in Europe. Before the United States entered the conflict, sixteen-year-old Mason enlisted as an ambulance driver and saw frontline service at the battle of Verdun. A proficiency in French, German, and Spanish later led to his employment as a military interpreter. He Forces. Mason returned home in 1919 to resume his education, first at the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachussets (1919 - 1920), and then at Harvard. He graduated in 1924 with a B. S. in literature and intended to enter the foreign received the croix de guerre with two palms, and the Medaille de Sauvetage, and was elected to the Legion of Honor.

Career

In 1918 he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army Expeditionary service. Instead, he started a business importing embroidery, rugs, and rare books. Acting as his own purchasing agent, Mason traveled frequently to the Caribbean, Europe, and North Africa. He kept his military affiliation with Squadron A of the New York National Guard's Seventh Cavalry (1924 - 1929). Early in 1928 he gave up his business, moved from New York City to Riderwood, Md. , and began writing full time. To maintain his army association, he transferred to the Maryland field artillery as a sergeant, and eventually received promotion to lieutenant (1930 - 1933). Mason's first book, Seeds of Murder (1930), introduced his protagonist Captain Hugh North, an army intelligence officer "of incisive thought as well as action, " according to a New York Times reviewer. North, whom Mason eventually promoted to major and colonel, starred in twenty-three novels. The plots took him to Africa, the Balkans, Cuba, Europe, the Middle East, and the Orient. The colorful and exciting backgrounds of these stories originated from Mason's own wanderings, and their complicated plots enthralled and captured a loyal coterie of fans. Another New York Times review summed up the author and his hero: "Van Wyck Mason and . North never let one down when it comes to mystery thrillers. " Even before the first North book reached the bookstores, Mason, who often worked on as many as four books at once, produced the historical novel Captain Nemesis (1931). During his career he gradually shifted from mystery to history, occasionally interspersing contemporary war stories. Mason's most successful historical fiction effort was the Revolutionary War novel Three Harbours (1938), which he wrote while living in Bermuda (1936 - 1939). Three Harbours sold more than 120, 000 hardcover copies and lingered on best-seller lists for nearly a year. It was the first of a tetralogy that included Stars on the Sea (1940), Rivers of Glory (1942), and Eagle in the Sky (1948). With twenty-one books in print after his first decade of writing, Mason, under the pseudonym Ward Weaver, began the 1940's with Hang My Wreath (1941). When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he requested active duty and the army called him up in early 1942. The following year, he received orders to Europe for duty with the General Staff Corps of the Supreme Allied Headquarters civil and military government section, as chief historian. Mason wrote some of the first official dispatches concerning the D-day invasion. By the time of his release from active duty in 1945, he had been promoted to full colonel. Despite the demands of wartime military service, Mason wrote another Ward Weaver book, End of Track (1943), and followed it with three war novels written under the pseudonym Frank W. Mason: Q-Boat (1943), Pilots, Man Your Planes! (1944), and Flight into Danger (1946). After returning to civilian life, as Van Wyck Mason he composed the thrillers Saigon Singer (1946) and Dardanelles Derelict (1949), and the historical novel Cutlass Empire (1949). His wife's illness, which began with a stroke in 1950 and led to her death in 1958, reduced Mason's output in the 1950's. He began with the award-winning Valley Forge (1950). In rapid succession he published Proud New Flags (1951), Golden Admiral (1953), Blue Hurricane (1954), Silver Leopard (1955), Captain Judas (1955), Our Valiant Few (1956), Lysander (1956), The Young Titan (1959), and Return of the Eagles (1959), the majority of them historical novels. He suffered a heart attack and drowned while swimming near his home at Southampton, Bermuda.

Achievements

• He had a long and prolific career as a writer spanning 50 years and including 78 published novels, many of which were best sellers and well received. Long a member of the American Society of Bermuda, Mason served as its president from 1960 until 1978. Mason wrote or edited sixty-five books during a literary career that spanned five decades.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Two Tickets for Tangiers

    (FIRST EDITION stated. DOUBLEDAY & CO., NY 1955. A COLONEL...)

  • Golden Admiral

    (Golden Admiral.A novel of Sir Francis Drake and the Armad...)

  • Three Harbours
  • Zanzibar Intrigue

    (Used Book)

  • Eagles in the Sky.

    (Book)

  • The Gracious Lily Affair
  • Harpoon in Eden / by F. van Wyck Mason
  • Sea Venture
  • Maracaibo Mission
  • The Young Titan.Historical novel of colonial America & the siege of Louisburg,1739-1745.

Membership

a member of the American Society of Bermuda

Connections

Mason married Dorothy Louise Macready on November 26, 1927; they had two children. Mason married his longtime secretary, Jeanne-Louise Hand, on October 3, 1958. They purchased a home in Bermuda and took up residence there in 1963.

Father:

Francis Payne Mason

Mother:

Ermagarde Coffin

Wife:

Dorothy Louise Macready

Wife:

Jeanne-Louise Hand