Robert C. O'Brien was the pen name of Robert Leslie Conly, born January 11, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Williams College but left during his sophomore year. After studying music, he returned to college the following year and in 1940 graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in English. In 1943 he married Sally McCaslin, and they had four children. From 1944 until his death of a heart attack on March 5, 1973, O'Brien worked in the Washington, D.C.

O'Brien, whose father was a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, worked as a journalist and editor. In 1941 he was a staff writer at Newsweek magazine; in 1944 he became a reporter for the Washington Times-Herald and later for Pathfinder News magazine. In...