PAPA MARRIED A MORMON - John D Fitzgerald.
A ROLICKING TALE OF LIFE AND LOVE SET IN THE OLD UTAH FRONTIER - WHEN THE WEST WAS STILL WILD!
Hardback - with good dust jacket. See photos for description, and photo showing information of the edition.
1955 1st Edition.
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From GOODREADS:
John Dennis Fitzgerald was born in Price, Utah,
on February 3, 1906, to Thomas and Minnie Melsen Fitzgerald. His father
had a pharmacy degree but engaged in a number of business ventures and
served on the Price Town Council for four years. John graduated from
Carbon High School and at the age of eighteen and left Utah to pursue a
career as a jazz drummer. He worked in a variety of occupations during
his life, including newspaper reporter for the World-Tribune in New York
City, foreign correspondent for United Press, advertising and
purchasing agent, and bank auditor. He also served on Wendell Willkie's
staff when Willkie was running for president.
At the time his
first book, Papa Married a Mormon (1955), was published, he was living
in Los Angeles and working as a steel buyer. Fitzgerald had collaborated
with his sister, Belle Fitzgerald Empey, to write this book. Her name
was not included as coauthor of the book because it was written in the
first person. Papa Married a Mormon was very popular and was reprinted
in several foreign-language editions, including Chinese. Twice chosen as
a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, it was also serialized in McCall's
Magazine. A sequel, Mamma's Boarding House, appeared in 1958.
Fitzgerald
moved to Denver in 1960 where he tried for a short time to make his
living as a full-time writer. He later reported that "I quit my job and
went to a mountain cabin to make my living writing. I had to sell my
jack and a tire to get back to Denver. When I got there I sold my
typewriter and swore I would never write again." His wife later bought
him another typewriter and he eventually resumed writing.
He had a
very successful writing career, publishing more than 500 magazine
articles, as well as poetry and songs and two books on writing, The
Professional Story Writer and His Art (1963) and Structuring Your Novel:
From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript (1972).
His most
successful and widely read novels are the juvenile books in the Great
Brain Series. They were loosely based on the adventures of his brother
Thomas N. Fitzgerald. Books in this series include: The Great Brain
(1967), More Adventures of the Great Brain (1969), Me and My Little
Brain (1971), The Great Brain at the Academy (1972), The Great Brain
Reforms (1973), The Return of the Great Brain (1974), and The Great
Brain Does It Again (1976).
The Great Brain Series has led to one
of the most asked questions in Utah literature: "Where is Adenville,
Utah?" Adenville is a fictional town created by Fitzgerald, but most
readers believe that the geographical setting loosely fits that of a
small town in southern Utah.
Fitzgerald and his wife, Joan, moved
to Titusville, Florida, in about 1972 where he continued his writing
career. He died there May 20, 1988, at the age of 82.