James Norman Hall

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James Norman Hall (born April 22, 1887 in Colfax , Iowa , † July 5, 1951 in Vaipoopoo , Tahiti ) was an American author, best known for his novel Mutiny on the Bounty ( Mutiny on the Bounty ).

Life

Hall was born in Colfax, Iowa , where he attended the local school. After completing his studies at Grinnell College in 1910 , he initially worked in social work in Boston ( Massachusetts ), at the same time he tried to establish himself as a writer and studied for the Master's degree at Harvard University .

In the summer of 1914, Hall was on vacation in the UK when World War I broke out. Posing as a Canadian , he volunteered for the British Army and served with the Royal Fusiliers as a machine gunner during the Battle of Loos . Dismissed after his true nationality was determined, he returned to the United States and wrote his first book, Kitchener's Mob (1916), which recounted his wartime experiences in Lord Kitchener's volunteer army .

He returned to France and joined the Escadrille La Fayette , a Franco-American air corps, before the United States officially entered the war. Hall was awarded the Croix de guerre with five palm trees and the Médaille Militaire . When the United States entered the war, Hall was made a captain in the Army Air Service . There he met another American pilot, Charles Nordhoff . After he was shot down, Hall spent the final months of the conflict as a German prisoner of war . He was inducted into the French Legion of Honor and was awarded the American Distinguished Service Cross .

After World War I, Hall spent much of his life on the island of Tahiti , where he wrote a number of successful adventure books with Nordhoff, who had also relocated there, including the Bounty trilogy, many of which were later made into films. In 1925 he married Sarah (Lala) Winchester, who had a Polynesian parent. They had two children: the cameraman Conrad L. Hall (1926-2003) and Nancy Hall-Rutgers (1930-).

Hall died in Tahiti and is buried on the hillside on his estate above the modest wooden house in which he lived with Lala for many years.

Joint work with Charles Nordhoff

In addition to the ten novels he wrote with Charles Bernard Nordhoff , and of which Hurricane (made into a film by John Ford in 1937 under the title ... then came the hurricane ), Sea without Frontiers , Ship without a Harbor , and The Dark River , both published the best known numerous own books.

Selected Works

The Bounty trilogy, together with Charles Nordhoff

  • Mutiny on the Bounty (1932)
  • Men Against the Sea (1934)
  • Pitcairn's Island (1934)
  • The Bounty Trilogy (illustrated by NC Wyeth) (1940)
    • German Translation under the title: C. Nordhoff and JN Hall: The mutiny on the "Bounty". Ship without a port. Sea without limits. Vienna, Munich, Basel: Verlag Kurt Desch 1961

Other works

  • Kitchener's Mob: The Adventures of an American in the British Army (1916)
  • High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France (1918)
  • Faery Lands of the South Seas (with Nordhoff) (1920)
  • Mid-Pacific (1928)
  • Falcons of France (with Nordhoff) (1929) Nordhoff and Hall's account of their service in the famous Lafayette Escadrille during the First World War
  • The Friends (1939)
  • Doctor Dogbody's Leg (1940)
  • Under a Thatched Roof (Essays) (1942)
  • Lost Island (1944)
  • The Far Lands (1950)
  • My Island Home: An Autobiography (1952)

literature

  • Arch Whitehouse: Aviator Aces 1914-1918 . Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 50-57.
  • Robert Roulston: James Norman Hall. Twayne Publishers, Boston 1978, ISBN 0-8057-7255-3 , ( Twayne's United States Authors Series 323).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hall, James Norman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Colfax , Iowa, United States
DATE OF DEATH 5th July 1951
Place of death Vaipoopoo , Tahiti