John Knowles

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John Knowles (September 16, 1926 - November 29, 2001), b. Fairmont, West Virginia, was an American novelist, best known for his novel A Separate Peace.

A 1945 graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, Knowles graduated from Yale University in 1949. A Separate Peace is based upon Knowles' experiences at Exeter during the summer of 1943. Although the setting for The Devon School is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Phillips Exeter. The plot should not be taken as autobiographical, although many elements of the novel stem from personal experience. In his essay, "A Special Time, A Special Place," Knowles wrote:

The only elements in A Separate Peace which were not in that summer were anger, envy, violence, and hatred. There was only friendship, athleticism, and loyalty.

Gore Vidal, in his memoir Palimpsest, acknowledges that he and Knowles concurrently attended Phillips Exeter, with Vidal two years ahead. Vidal states that Knowles told him that the character Brinker, who precipitates the novel's crisis, is based on Vidal. "We have been friends for many years now," Vidal said, "and I admire the novel that he based on our school days, A Separate Peace." A Separate Peace is widely included on high-school curricula. The novel's homoerotic subtext continues to stimulate spirited debate.

Knowles's other significant works are Morning in Antibes, Double Vision: American Thoughts Abroad, Indian Summer, The Paragon, and Peace Breaks Out. None of these later works were as well received as A Separate Peace.

A resident of Southampton, New York, Knowles wrote seven novels, a book on travel and a collection of stories. He was the winner of William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In his later years, Knowles lectured to university audiences.

[edit] Selected works

A Separate Peace, London, Secker & Warburg, 1959; New York, Macmillan Co., 1960
Morning in Antibes; a novel, New York, Macmillan, 1962
Double Vision; American Thoughts Abroad, New York, Macmillan, 1964
Indian Summer, New York, Random House, 1966
Phineas; six stories, New York, Random House, 1968
Ballin, New York, Random House, c. 1971
A Special Time, A Special Place, Exeter Academy', 1995 (autobiographical note on Internet)
Spreading Fires, New York, Random House, 1974
A Vein of Riches, Boston, Little Brown, 1978
Peace Breaks Out, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981
A Stolen Past, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983
The Private Life of Axie Reed, New York: Jesse Grunberg, 1986