Robert Sidney Bowen

Robert Sidney Bowen, Jr. (1900 – April 11, 1977) was a World War I aviator, newspaper journalist, magazine editor and author who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died of cancer in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the age of 76.^[1] He is best known for his boys' series books written during World War II, the Dave Dawson War Adventure Series and the Red Randall Series. He also worked under the name R. Sidney Bowen and under the pseudonym James Robert Richard.^[2]

Life

Before becoming an author

At the age of 14, Bowen left high school to drive an ambulance for the French Army in World War I. He then lied about his age and enlisted in Great Britain's Royal Flying Corps where he was trained by Vernon Castle. He saw combat over France but achieved no victories despite claims of shooting down eight enemy airplanes and balloons.

After the war ended in 1918, Bowen began working as a journalist for the London Daily Mail, the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune, and two Boston newspapers.^[1] For several years (until the 1930s), he was editor-in-chief of Aviation Magazine. He also worked as an editor for Flying News and several motor magazines.

As an author

Bowen turned to writing in 1930, using his prestige as editor-in-chief of Aviation Magazine to write Flying From The Ground Up, a non-fiction work on how to fly an airplane. He began freelancing for pulp magazines. In 1934, he started his own pulp magazine, Dusty Ayres And His Battle Birds, for Popular Publications. Twelve issues were released, the first eleven published monthly from July 1934 through July 1935, with most issues released monthly. Bowen continued writing for mystery, adventure, sports, and aviation pulp magazines through the 1950s.

After the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939 sparked World War II, Crown Publishers called Bowen, asking for an adventure story based on the war.^[3] The Dave Dawson series , also known as the War Adventure series, was the result. Bowen got to work immediately, and the first book, Dave Dawson At Dunkirk, was published in 1941. A total of 15 volumes were released between 1941 and 1946.

By 1945 the series had sold over 2,000,000 copies. Bowen was earning 2¹⁄₂ cents per copy sold, netting him nearly $10,000 a year.^[3] All volumes, except for the scarce final volume, were subsequently reprinted (with cheaper quality and prices) by Saalfield Publishers in Akron, Ohio.

Inspired by the success of the Dave Dawson books, Crown's competing publisher Grosset & Dunlap hired Bowen to write a similar series for them. The Red Randall series debuted in 1944, selling 200,000 copies its first year.^[3]

During this time, Bowen lived in Wilton, Connecticut, writing seven days a week, from 9 to 5, in an office that he rented over an old garage. He averaged 10,000 words per day, and could complete a novel in ten days.^[3] He also never revised his work, believing that any tampering with the story would ruin it.^[2]

After the war, Bowen turned to writing books aimed toward adolescent boys, on topics such as aviation, cars, and baseball. He also began writing books about horses under the pseudonym James Robert Richard. Most of the books he wrote during this period were published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard. Many of his baseball books were later reprinted by Grosset & Dunlap in their series of "Famous Sports Stories." Most of his other books were published by Chilton, Whitman Publishing, Criterion.

Robert Sidney Bowen and his wife, MaryAnn (MacIntyre) Bowen, had two sons, James Sinclair Bowen and Richard Fenton Bowen, and one daughter, Virginia Bowen, and, at the time of his death, five grandchildren, Katherine Ann Bowen, Thomas Robert Bowen, Cheryl L. Bowen, Wayne Tucker, and Linda. Robert Sidney Bowen was first married to Marjorie Percy Bowen and had a son Robert Watson Bowen who has three children Greg, Jennifer and Beth.

Partial bibliography

Series Books

Dusty Ayres And His Battle Birds

Dave Dawson War Adventure Series

Red Randall Series

Non-Series Books

Using Real Name

Using pseudonym James Robert Richard

Notes

External links

• Works by Robert Sidney Bowen at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Robert Sidney Bowen at Internet Archive
• Works by Robert Sidney Bowen at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Dusty Ayres and his Battle Birds