Eric Knight

Eric Mowbray Knight (born April 10, 1897 in Yorkshire , Great Britain , † January 14, 1943 in Suriname ) was an American writer . His most famous book is Lassie Come Home , on which the films and TV series about the collie dog Lassie are based.

Early years

Eric Knight was born in England in 1897, but moved with his parents to South Africa as a child , as his father worked there as a diamond dealer. When the mother married an American after the father's death, Knight moved with her to Massachusetts at the age of 15 .

After finishing school, studied Knight first art at the New York National Academy of Design, after which he worked for various newspapers and wrote film reviews and screenplays, including for director Frank Capra .

Lassie

After marrying his wife, Jere, a successful sport fencer who was nominated for the 1932 Olympics , the two bought a farm in Springtown, Pennsylvania , where they raised collies and other dogs. According to Jere Knight, the role model for Lassie was the Collie Toots, whom the two had as puppies and who died at the age of 14.

After the couple moved to New York City , Knight wrote the short story of Lassie, which was first published in The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938 . It quickly became popular and Winston-Verlag secured the rights to it. The story, published as a book in 1940, immediately became a bestseller and has meanwhile been translated into 24 languages. MGM bought the film rights, and in 1943 the first feature film Lassie Come Home (ran in Germany under the title Heimweh ) with ten-year-old Elizabeth Taylor was released . More films and TV series followed, and Lassie became arguably the most famous dog in the world.

Her creator Eric Knight did not live to see the worldwide success of the loyal collie lady. He paid another visit to the film set in 1942, but died before the premiere in January 1943 when he crashed in an army transport plane over the jungle near Paramaribo in Suriname . The cause of the crash could never be clarified.

Other publications (selection)

• Invitation to Life (1934)
• Song on Your Bugles (1936)
• The Flying Yorkshireman (1938)
• The Happy Land (1940)
• This Above All (1942)

swell

• Biography, English
• Interview with Knight's widow Jere, English ( Memento from June 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
• Newspaper article about the death of Knight, English ( Memento of December 5, 2003 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

• Literature by and about Eric Knight in the catalog of the German National Library