As a child he enjoyed reading fantasy and read L. Frank Baum's Oz books, but his favorite writer was the British author E. Nesbit, who became a major influence on his own work. During his childhood years, Eager spent summers in Indiana, where he learned to enjoy country life. Gardening and bird watching became lasting hobbies. He attended Harvard University, but never received a diploma. A play he wrote as an undergraduate, "Pudding Full of Plums," proved to be so successful that he decided to forego the degree in favor of devoting himself to full-time writing.
After leaving college, Eager moved to New York City, where he lived for the next fourteen years. There he established himself as a playwright and lyricist. His literary output included radio scripts, television and stage adaptations of opera classics, and lyrics for popular songs. In 1938 he married Jane Eberly, who had been a schoolmate of his in Ohio and had sat directly behind him in study hall because of the alphabetical seating order. They had one child, a son named Fritz who was to graduate from Harvard, an achievement in which his father took vicarious delight.
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