John Knowles Biography

A Separate Peace About the Author

John Knowles was born on September 16, 1926, in Fairmont, West Virginia. He lived there until he enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1941, where he was on the swimming team. He entered Yale University in 1945, continuing to compete as a swimmer in addition to editing the Yale Daily News and contributing short fiction to the Yale magazine Lit. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in English in 1949, and he worked briefly as a reporter for the Hartford Courant before joining the Curtis Publishing Company. At Curtis, he eventually became the associate editor of Holiday magazine. He spent much of his free time traveling extensively in Europe, the Near East, and the islands of the Aegean. During this time, he contributed many essays to travel journals and began to publish his short stories in popular national magazines.

In 1960 A Separate Peace, his first novel, was...
(read more)