David Eddings
Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer David Carroll Eddings (July 7, 1931 – June 2, 2009<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>) was an American fantasy writer. With his wife Leigh, he authored several best-selling epic fantasy novel series, including The Belgariad (1982–84), The Malloreon (1987–91), The Elenium (1989–91), The Tamuli (1992–94), and The Dreamers (2003–06).
Early life and careerEdit
Eddings was born in Spokane, Washington,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> to George Wayne Eddings and Theone (Berge) Eddings,<ref>The alt.fan.eddings David Eddings Frequently Asked Questions List</ref> in 1931. Eddings was known to claim to be part Cherokee.<ref name="starlog.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Eddings grew up near Puget Sound in the City of Snohomish.<ref>Sorceress of Darshiva</ref> After graduating from Snohomish High School in 1949, he worked for a year before majoring in speech, drama and English at junior college.<ref>David and Leigh Eddings, The Rivan Codex, Template:ISBN, p. 9</ref> Eddings displayed an early talent for drama and literature, winning a national oratorical contest, and performing the male lead in most of his drama productions. He graduated with a BA from Reed College in 1954, writing his first novel, How Lonely Are The Dead, as his senior thesis. After graduating from Reed College, Eddings was drafted into the U.S. Army,<ref name="auto">David and Leigh Eddings, The Rivan Codex, Template:ISBN, p. 10</ref> having also previously served in the National Guard.<ref name="starlog210">Template:Cite magazine</ref> After being discharged in 1956, Eddings attended the graduate school of the University of Washington in Seattle for four years, graduating with an MA in 1961 after submitting a novel in progress, Man Running, for his thesis.<ref>David and Leigh Eddings, The Rivan Codex, Template:ISBN, p. 3</ref>
After earning his Master's, Eddings worked as a purchaser for Boeing, where he met his future wife, then known as Judith Leigh Schall.<ref name="auto" /> They married in 1962, she taking the name Leigh Eddings, and through most of the 1960s, Eddings worked as an assistant professor at Black Hills State College in South Dakota.
Child abuse convictionEdit
Eddings and his wife Leigh pled guilty to 11 counts of physical child abuse<ref name="blackhillsweekly-1970feb" /> of their adopted children. They adopted one boy in 1966, Scott David, then two months old,<ref name="queencitymail-1966mar" /><ref name="queencitymail-1970may" /> and subsequently adopted a girl between 1966 and 1969.<ref name="queencitymail-1970may" /> In 1970 the couple lost custody of both children and were each sentenced to a year in jail in separate trials for extensive child abuse of both children.<ref name="blackhillsweekly-1970feb" /> Though the trial and conviction of both David and Leigh Eddings was reported in the local press, the news was not widely disseminated, as Eddings was an obscure academic at the time. The conviction was consequently not remarked on after Eddings became a well-known author over a decade later, and was not widely publicly revealed until after his death.
Literary careerEdit
Early literary careerEdit
Eddings had completed the first draft of his first published novel, High Hunt, in March 1971 while serving his jail term.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> High Hunt was a contemporary story of four young men hunting deer. Like many of his later novels, it explores themes of manhood and coming of age. Convinced that being an author was his future career, after a short period in Denver, David and Leigh Eddings moved to Spokane, where he relied on a job at a grocery shop for his funds. High Hunt was published in early 1972 by G. P. Putnam's Sons to modestly positive reviews.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Eddings continued to work on several unpublished novels, including Hunseeker's Ascent, a story about mountain climbing, which was later burned, as Eddings claimed it was "a piece of tripe so bad it even bored me."<ref name="auto1">David and Leigh Eddings, The Rivan Codex, Template:ISBN, p. 11</ref> Most of his attempts followed the same vein as High Hunt: adventure stories and contemporary tragedies. None were sold or published, with the eventual exception of The Losers, which tells the story of God and the Devil cast in the roles of Raphael Taylor, gifted student and athlete, and Damon Flood, a scoundrel determined to bring Raphael down. Though written in the 1970s, The Losers was not published until June 1992, well after Eddings' success as an author was established.<ref name="starlog210"/>
Success in fantasy writingEdit
Eddings doodled a fantasy map one morning before work. According to Eddings' account several years later, when seeing a copy of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in a bookshop, he muttered, "Is this old turkey still floating around?". He was surprised to learn that it was then in its 78th printing. He had, though, already included Tolkien's work in the syllabuses for at least three sections of his English Literature survey courses in the summer of 1967 and the springs of 1968 and 1969.<ref name="themodernistreview.co.uk">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He began to annotate the map doodle, which became the basis for his factional country of Aloria.<ref name="auto1"/> Over the course of a year, Edding detailed around 250 pages of kingdoms, races, characters, theologies and a mythology.
As the Lord of the Rings had been published as three books, Eddings believed fantasy in general was supposed to be published in trilogy form. He initially laid out The Belgariad as three books, until his editor, Lester del Rey, advised him that booksellers would refuse to accept books of 600 pages. Del Rey suggested the series be published as five books. Eddings at first refused, but having already signed the contract, and with Del Rey's promise that he would receive advances for five books rather than three, agreed to the arrangement.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Pawn of Prophecy, the first volume in the series, was issued in April 1982. The next four novels where published between then and 1984. The series was popular. Eddings continued to produce fantasy novels for the rest of his life, usually producing a book every year or two.
From 1995 onwards, the novels were credited jointly to Leigh Eddings; Eddings explained in a foreword that their working together as authors "had been the case from the beginning." This is generally accepted as broadly accurate,<ref name="PWrivan">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="dammassa">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> although Eddings scholar James Gifford notes that collaboration would have been "impossible" with High Hunt, as David Eddings' own notes show that the first draft was completed while he and Leigh were both in separate jails, about half-way through their terms.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Eddingses' final work, the novel series The Dreamers, was published in four volumes between 2003 and 2006.
Later lifeEdit
On January 26, 2007, Eddings accidentally burned about a quarter of his office, next door to his house, along with his Excalibur sports car.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
On February 28, 2007, David Eddings' wife Leigh died following a series of strokes that left her unable to communicate. She was 69.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Eddings cared for her at home with her mother after her first stroke, which occurred three years before he finished writing The Dreamers.<ref name="themodernistreview.co.uk"/>
Eddings died of natural causes on June 2, 2009, in Carson City, Nevada.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news Template:Dead link</ref>
Dennis, Eddings' brother, said that he had suffered from dementia for a long time, but that the disease had progressed rapidly since September 2008, and that he needed 24-hour care. He also confirmed that in his last months, his brother had been working on a manuscript that was unlike any of his other works, stating "It was very, very different. I wouldn't call it exactly a satire of fantasy but it sure plays with the genre". The unfinished work, along with his other manuscripts, went to his alma mater, Reed College,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> along with a bequest of $18 million to fund "students and faculty studying languages and literature."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Eddings also bequeathed $10 million to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver for pediatric asthma treatment and research; Eddings' wife Leigh had asthma throughout her life.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
BibliographyEdit
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ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Interview with David Eddings at sffworld.com
- Template:Trim David Eddings at the Internet Speculative Fiction DatabaseTemplate:EditAtWikidata
- Novel synopses, cover art, and reviews at FantasyLiterature.netTemplate:Webarchive
- Template:Usurped
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