Walter Farley

Walter Farley (born June 26, 1915 in Syracuse , New York , USA , † October 16, 1989 in Sarasota , Florida , USA ) was an American writer . Walter Farley, who received his Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College at Columbia University in 1941 , was best known for his youth book Blitz, the black stallion , which was published that same year. The book has been made into films several times, including by Francis Ford Coppola under the title The Black Stallion . Sequels and other offshoots of the novel also followed, which were continued after his death by his son, Steven Farley .

Life

Walter Lorimer Farley was born in 1915 - according to isolated reports in 1920 - as the son of the deputy hotel manager Walter Farley and his wife Isabell (Vermilyea) Farley in Syracuse.

As a child, Walter Farley wanted nothing more than to have his own pony or horse, so he took part in competitions for this himself. It was only when his uncle, a professional horse specialist and trainer , moved from the west coast to Syracuse in 1927 that his wishes were at least partially fulfilled: “My greatest love was, and still is, horses. I wanted a pony as much as any boy or girl could possibly want anything - but I never owned one. I tried selling subscriptions to win a pony, which was offered as a prize to the kid who sold the most subscriptions. Then my uncle with a flock of show horses and jumpers moved from the West Coast to Syracuse, and I was deliriously happy. I was at the stables every chance I could get. ”He was able to learn the advantages and disadvantages of horse training from him. Although this uncle was not the most successful trainer, he tried all sorts of disciplines in his craft, such as steeplechases , so that he could provide his nephew with a broad knowledge base. Farley began writing his debut The black stallion while attending Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and continued the writing process when he moved to Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania . He completed his novel - sponsored by his professor Mable R. Robinson, who encouraged him to present the book at Random House - shortly before his graduation from Columbia University. His second novel, Larry and the Underseas Raider, about a Japanese submarine attack on American ships near Hawaii , was initially rejected by his publishing house Random House, but was put to print in 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor . After working briefly at the advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn in New York, Farley, like many other men of his generation, was drafted into the US Army (Fourth Armored Division) during World War II in 1942, where he worked as a reporter for the Army -Magazine Yank and also served as a crew member of a tank. During his military service he wrote his second horse novel: The black stallion returns . Even before his release from military service, he married his wife Rosemary Lutz, a Manhattan Power - Model from New York, on 26 May 1945 and moved with her in 1946 after Pennsylvania.

1950 was Farley about the magazine LIFE as an advertising strategy ausloben a contest in which he famous for his later appearing in two years novel The Black Stallion's Filly central mares foal was looking for: The magazine reached 50,000 letters from readers, from which Farley finally Black Minx chose. However, 13 senders had chosen this name, so Farley asked each of their motives and then selected one as the winner of a two-year-old gray horse.

Farley and his wife Rosemary had four children and lived on a farm in Pennsylvania, where, inspired by the years of apprenticeship with his uncle, he bred and trained Arabian horses , among other things , and in a beach house in Florida . In 1962 he and his wife organized a circle of friends to found a public city library, which three years later became the City of Venice City Library.

In 1967, one of his teenage daughters died in a serious car accident, which indirectly inspired him to write The Black Stallion and the Girl to create a literary memorial to his daughter's love for horses.

In 1989 he was honored by the city library of his adopted home Venice by establishing the Walter Farley Literary Landmark in the children's and youth library area. His works have been translated into fourteen languages. He himself liked to ride dressage and Lipizzaner horses . Farley also operated as a sailor with his own 35-foot sloop .

Farley died at the age of 74 years to cancer , shortly before the release of The Young Black Stallion , and shortly after the start of production of the film adaptation of The Adventures of the Black Stallion . Farley himself initially feared that the script would neglect its artistic concept, but according to his own statements he was satisfied with the aesthetic concept after the script was completed.

Works

• Blitz the black stallion. ( The black stallion. 1941)
• Lightning returns home. ( The black stallion returns. 1945)
• Blitz sends his son. ( Son of the black stallion. 1947)
• The stallion of the blue island ( The island stallion 1948)
• Lightning and volcano. ( The black Stallion and Satan. 1949)
• Red horse with black mane ( The black stallion's blood bay colt 1951)
• The revenge of the red stallion ( The island stallion's fury 1951)
• The Black Stallion's Filly. 1952.
• Lightning breaks out. ( The Black stallion revolts. 1953)
• Lightning and fire devil. ( The Black Stallion's Sulky Colt. 1954)
• The Island Stallion Races. 1955.
• Blitz starts. ( The Black Stallion's Courage. 1956)
• Blitz is looking for his father ( The black stallion's Mystery. 1957)
• The Horse-Tamer. 1958.
• Lightning and the fox. ( Black Stallion and Flame. 1960)
• Man o 'War 1962
• Blitz is challenged. ( The black stallion challenged. 1964)
• The horse that swam away. 1965.
• The Boy with the Big Dog ( The Great Dane Thor 1966)
• Lightning in danger. ( The black stallion's ghost. 1969)
• Blitz and Pam / girls in the saddle. ( The black stallion and the girl. 1971)
• Blitz, the stallion of the sun god. ( The black stallion legend. 1983)
• Blitz, the black foal. (with Steven Farley) ( The young black stallion. 1989)
• Lightning, the eerie shadow. (Steven Farley) ( The black stallion's Shadow. 1996)

The Blitz book series was continued by his son after Walter Farley's death.

Awards and honors

• 1944: Pacific Northwest Library Association's Young Reader's Choice Award for The Black Stallion
• 1948: Pacific Northwest Library Association's Young Reader's Choice Award for The Black Stallion Returns
• 1948: Boys Club Junior book award for The Black Stallion Returns
• 1989: Literary landmark in the Venice Area Public Library, Venice, Florida

reception

The Blitz horse book series, which sold 12 million copies in the United States alone, has also been very popular in German-speaking countries since the 1950s, especially since its horse story clearly stood out from the so-called " Backfisch " pattern of the Backfisch novel. As an equestrian history written by a man, the tenor changed to classic animal history thanks to the realistic and less romanticizing representation of horses. After all, the domesticated horse didn't emerge as the main character until the 1930s. Usually in the context of the situation in which a wild horse is caught and tamed thanks to the caring friendship of a person. The first volume in the Blitz series corresponds in particular to this pattern of action. The relationship between the young Alec and the also isolated black stallion Blitz has a uniqueness due to the experience of the shipwreck , which was welded together , which one could not experience in the conventional Backfisch / horse novels of that time. Albert G. Miller's Fury pursued a similar recipe for success, but in contrast to the Blitz series, it was limited to private sphere of activity, while Blitz became a celebrated canter champion worldwide thanks to and among other things with Alec in the saddle and, as the ancestor of a stud, passed his genes for success to his offspring himself passed on in trotting .

In a retrospective literary comparison, Farley's method was positively highlighted as follows: “(...) Farley takes a lot of time to describe the horse's own life and world, gives insights into animal behavior and shows relationships in nature. In this way he arouses curiosity for nature and the essence of the horse as well as compassion for the animal. "

In retrospect, the great success of his book series was justified in the English-speaking world by the fact that Farley always valued the expectations of his audience highly and therefore, in addition to the thematic background of the respective adventure, placed great emphasis on a realistic description or basis and detailed execution of the characters. In contrast to many other youth book series that have been successful over the years, the literary level of Farley's books would hardly have decreased because each book could also stand for itself: “although hist books are linked by character and story, each can stand alone as a fine adventure tale. ”In addition, the series has skillfully combined the myth of Arabia with the action-packed drama of horse racing. In addition, his protagonists, Alec and Blitz, have grown up over the years compared to conventional youth book series, which means that Farley himself wrote increasingly more professionally and ambitiously, without neglecting his passion for describing thoroughbred horses that made his success in the guaranteed young readership.

Adaptations

Movie and TV

• 1979: The Black Stallion (The Black Stallion) , directed by Carroll Ballard .
• 1983: The Black Stallion Returns (The Black Stallion Returns) , directed by Robert Dalva .
• 1990–1993: The Adventures of the Black Stallion - Canadian television series loosely based on the first two books in the series.
• 2003: The young Black Stallion , directed by Simon Wincer . Steven Farley expressly distanced himself from this film adaptation, since in his opinion the adaptation would only be based very loosely on the literary model and, strangely enough, the ancestor of these Arabian horses would resemble a Frisian .

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Farley in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Literature by and about Walter Farley in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Walter Farley  in the German Digital Library
• Walter Farley in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Angie Bryant: The Black Stallion Literacy Project . In: Equus Caballus Magazine, Vol. 7.2
• walterfarley.ponymadbooklovers.co.uk/ - Biography, illustrated and annotated bibliography. Retrieved May 29, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} stevenfarley.ponymadbooklovers.co.uk
2. ↑ In contrast to her later statements: Anita Silvey: Children's Books and Their Creators. Houghton Mifflin, Boston / New York 1995, p. 237.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} pabook.libraries.psu.edu ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved May 29, 2012. 
4. ↑ Quoted from: Virginia Johnson: Walter Farley's Black Stallion Still a Winner. On: www.librarypoint.org. June 3, 2010. Originally: Walter Farley: Contemporary Authors Online , Gale, 2010. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} theblackstallion.com . Retrieved May 29, 2012.
6. ↑ Kevin M. McCarthy: The Book Lover's Guide to Florida. Pineapple Press, Sarasota 2002, p. 302.
7. ^ Albert Scardino: Walter Farley, 74, A Writer of a Series On a Black Stallion. In: New York Times . October 18, 1989. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
8. ^ Walter Farley, 'Black Stallion' Author, Dies at 69. In: Deseret News. October 22, 1989. Retrieved May 29, 2012. This obituary is the only one to give a different date of birth in reference to the Venice City Library: June 26, 1920.
9. ↑ ^{a b} www.theweeweb.co.uk  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ 50,000 Letters for a Colt. Dayton girl wins a gray horse for finding a name for a black horse. In: LIFE . February 13, 1950. Accessed May 30, 2012.
11. ↑ Charla R. Pfeffinger, Suzanne I. Borchers (Eds.): Multi-Grade Readers Theater: Stories About Short Story and Book Authors. ABC-CLIO, Libraries Unlimited, Santa Barbara, California 2011, p. 87.
12. ^ The Nevada Daily Mail. July 15, 1980: Meet the 'Black Stallion' author, Walter Farley
13. ^ ^{A b} Anita Silvey: The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston / New York 2002, p. 152.
14. ↑ venicefriends.org ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
15. ↑ literaryawards.com.au . Retrieved May 30, 2012.
16. ↑ On the quality of the adaptation: Linda Costanzo Cahir: Literature Into Film: Theory And Practical Approaches. McFarland, Jefferson 2006, p. 39 ff.
17. ↑ bookcentre.ca/awards/ ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved May 30, 2012. 
18. ↑ To the delimitation of the content of the animal book: Gerhard Haas : Das Tierbuch. In: Children's and Youth Literature. A lexicon. Edited by Gerhard Haas, NA Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, pp. 287-307.
19. ^ Farley is named next to Fred Gipson and Marguerite Henry as one of the prominent animal book authors in the youth book area: Bernice E. Cullinan, Diane Goetz Person (ed.): The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Continuum, New York 2005, p. 840.
20. ↑ See Danielle Cerovina: Experience the happiness of the earth while reading. Girl horse book series, a gender-oriented, structural and content-based investigation. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2009, p. 451.
21. ↑ Danielle Cerovina: Experience the happiness of the earth reading. Girl horse book series, a gender-oriented, structural and content-based investigation. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2009, p. 455.
22. ↑ Cf. his prominent mention in the category of American children's and young adult literature : James David Hart, Phillip Leininger (ed.): The Oxford Companion to American Literature. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1995, p. 123.
23. ^ Anita Silvey: The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston / New York 2002, p. 151.
24. ↑ On the adverse effect of u. a. Arabian Horse Popularity Awakened by Farley's books (excessive horse trade): Gail Stewart: The Arabian Horse. Capstobne Press, Makato 1995, p. 25.
25. ↑ Samantha Johnson, Daniel Johnson: Horse Breeds: 65 Popular Horse, Pony & Draft Horse Breeds. Voyageur Press, Minneapolis 2008, p. 128.
26. ↑ Samantha Johnson, Daniel Johnson (Eds.): The Field Guide to Horses. Voyageur Press, Minneapolis 2009, p. 15.
27. ↑ See Walter Hogan: Animals in Young Adult Fiction. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2009, p. 12.
28. ↑ The black stallion. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 10, 2015 . 
29. ↑ The Black Stallion Returns. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 10, 2015 . 
30. ↑ Black, the black lightning bolt. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 10, 2015 . 
31. ↑ The young Black Stallion. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 10, 2015 .