Walter D. Edmonds
Personal Information
Description
Walter Dumaux Edmonds was born in Boonville, New York, and began a longtime association with Harvard University when he entered Choate Rosemary Hall in 1919. He originally intended to study chemical engineering, but he became more interested in writing and worked as managing editor of the campus literary magazine. He received an A.B. in 1926. In 1929, he published his first novel, Rome Haul, about the Erie Canal. In 1930, he married Eleanor Stetson. His novel Drums Along the Mohawk (1936) was on the bestseller list for two years, second to Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind for part of that time. In 1942 he won the Newbery Medal for his novel The Matchlock Gun (1941). When his wife died in 1956, he married Katherine Howe Baker Carr. In 1976 he was awarded the National Book Award for Children's Literature his novel Bert Breen's Barn (1975). Over the course of his career, he published 34 books, many for children.
Books
Tales my father never told
This new book by Walter Edmonds is a cause for celebration. For decades Edmonds has been one of America's most popular writers. A National Book Award and Newbery Medal winner, his Drums Along the Mohawk is one of the all-time best sellers. His many historical novels about America and his extremely popular children's books have earned for him a loyal and substantial group of fans. Edmonds' latest book, his first in decades, will be welcomed by readers all over. Tales My Father Never Told is a nostalgic look back at another time and place. This is the autobiography Edmonds never wrote. It lovingly recreates his childhood and pre-adolescent days growing up at the foot of the great Adirondacks, in the rural beauty of the Northlands. He writes about his first drunk, his special love for fly-fishing, certain Irish "ghosts" known to inhabit the land along their stream... and his father: "We did not often understand each other then; in the end I was able to see that love had existed, existed on both sides, and perhaps that disclosure is justification for this small book.". Tales thus has a thoughtful and sometimes painful edge to it, but there is much humor too, as when the young "Watty" learns to forge his father's signature, or where he hints that the dagger father has mounted over his bed might be tipped with curare. And so, Tales is about youth and rural life, about the early years of one of this country's finest writers and, as Edmonds tells us, it is the story of a father and a son, of the love he felt for the son, deep and real, and of a love that "worked both ways."
The South African quirt
A young boy living seventy summers ago in upstate New York soon learns he must protect himself from his father's despotism.
Bert Breen's Barn
A young man attempts to claim ownership to an old barn rumored to contain a hidden treasure.
The story of Richard Storm
Having spent most of his life preparing to be the biggest thunderstorm of all, Richard finally takes off across New York state on a wild course of destruction.
Beaver valley
The dam built by a colony of beavers changes the environment of a valley and threatens the lives of many animal residents.
Wolf hunt
A stump-toed wolf becomes an ideal as well as prey to the two hunters stalking it.
Time to go house
The adventures of Smalleata, the mouse, when she and her family move into a house vacated by humans for the winter.
They had a horse
Seventeen-year-old's dream of a horse for his young wife's trip to Schenectady for flour comes true with a bit of faith and bargaining. A story of pioneer America in 1714.
The wedding journey
The story of a honeymoon couple traveling through the beautiful Erie Canal country in the 1830's.
The matchlock gun
In 1756, during the French and Indian War in upper New York state, ten-year-old Edward is determined to protect his home and family with the ancient, and much too heavy, Spanish gun that his father had given him before leaving home to fight the enemy.