John Horne Burns
Biography
John Horne Burns produced what some consider the best World War II novel, with The Gallery, wrote two weaker novels and was working on a fourth, before dying suddenly at the age of thirty-six. He was born in 1916 in Andover, Massachusetts. His father was a lawyer while his mother was a Boston heiress. After attending Catholic school and Andover Academy, he studied music and literature at Harvard, and then became an English teacher at the Loomis School. In World War II, he served in military intelligence, rising from the rank of private to be a second lieutenant. He returned to Loomis after the War but left after The Gallery was published. This book, though not about combat but rather about the people he encountered, had considerable success. His two subsequent novels, the second one written while he was living in Italy, were far less successful. He was working on another novel when he died from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1953.
Books about John Horne Burns
John Mitzel: John Horne Burns: An Appreciative Biography
Other links
John Horne Burns
John Horne Burns
Burns, John Horne (1916-1953)
Bibliography
1947 The Gallery
1949 Lucifer with a Book
1952 A Cry of Children