Samuel Shellabarger was an American novelist, biographer, and educator.
Background
He was born on May 18, 1888 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States, the son of Robert Rodgers Shellabarger, a lawyer, and Sarah Rivera Wood Shellabarger.
His parents died when he was a boy, and he was raised in the home of his grandfather and namesake, an attorney who had served in the United States Congress during the Civil War and was later minister to Portugal. Both grandparents, Shellabarger remembered with fond approval, held traditional values and provided him with a cultured atmosphere.
By 1903 he had toured Europe twice and had acquired a lifelong passion for travel and history.
Education
He attended the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa. , and Princeton University, where he won various literary prizes and decided to become a writer. He graduated with the B. A. in 1909, studied for a year at the University of Munich, studied at the Harvard Law School for a year, and then began graduate work in English at Princeton. He received the Ph. D. from Harvard in 1917.
Career
He taught English at Princeton from 1914 to 1916.
In 1917 Shellabarger enlisted in the army, serving as first lieutenant and captain. In part because of his wife's background, he was assigned to Stockholm (1918 - 1919) to do intelligence work and to interview returning American prisoners of war. He was assistant professor of English at Princeton from 1919 to 1923 and then moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, to write.
On of his first works was The Chevalier Bayard (1928). Although the book received good reviews, it sold poorly. The response to Shellabarger's novel, The Black Gale (1929), was polite, although The Door of Death (1928), a mystery done under the pseudonym John Esteven, sold well.
From 1927 to 1929 Shellabarger was an assistant professor of English at Princeton; from 1929 to 1931 he lived in Europe, where he did historical research and, as John Esteven, wrote the mystery Voodoo (1930).
When he returned to the United States in 1931 there was no longer a permanent position for him at Princeton. To support himself he wrote, again as John Esteven, the commercially successful mysteries By Night at Dinsmore (1935), While Murder Waits (1937), Graveyard Watch (1938), and Assurance Double Sure (1939). The manuscript of his work Lord Chesterfield (1935) was rejected by American publishers and Shellabarger had it published in England, where it received favorable notice.
In 1938 Shellabarger became headmaster of the Columbus (Ohio) School for Girls. Although Ohio was somewhat removed from his world, he guided the school through a difficult time - both as administrator and as an inspirational presence. He continued writing and under the pseudonym Peter Loring published Grief Before Night (1938) and a romance, Miss Rolling Stone (1939).
The outbreak of World War II intensified his patriotism and prompted him to write a romantic, epic novel for his son, who was in the armed forces. Captain From Castile (1945) was his first great literary triumph. A successful motion picture (1947) starring Tyrone Power was based on the novel.
Now financially independent, Shellabarger resigned his headmastership in 1946, after staying on for a year to help the school find a suitable replacement. He declined a lucrative offer to go to Hollywood and returned to Princeton, where he finished the bestseller Prince of Foxes (1947).
He died in Princeton, New Jersey.
Achievements
Samuel Shellabarger was known as a Victorian gentleman, through his historical novels he achieved great literary triumph. He was famous as the author of best-selling books Captain From Castile, Prince of Foxes, they were so popular that were made into movies and translated into eighteen languages. His other famous works - By Night at Dinsmore (1935), While Murder Waits (1937), Graveyard Watch (1938), and Assurance Double Sure (1939).
