Abe Lincoln in Illinois (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Robert E. Sherwood was a popular American playwright and novelist of the twentieth century. His works reflected the concerns of the generation that had lived through the First World War. They often explored the horrors of modern warfare and the moral choices that were required of those who participated in war. Sherwood was born on April 4, 1896, and attended Milton Academy, graduating from Harvard with a bachelor of arts degree in 1917. When he tried to enlist in the American army during World War I, he was rejected, and so he joined the Canadian infantry. During the war, he was wounded and was sprayed with toxic mustard gas. On his return from the war, he became a magazine movie reviewer, first for Vanity Fair and then for Life. He was, in fact, one of the country’s first serious film critics. By the mid-1920s, he was an editor for Life and was doing some screenwriting for Hollywood studios. In 1926 his first screenplay, an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was produced. The following year had the opening of his first stage play, The Road to Rome. He wrote several movies and plays during the twenties and thirties. His works were not praised for their artistry, but they were considered well crafted and effective and generally pleased the public.

In 1934 Sherwood divorced his first wife and remarried. The following period found him at the peak of his artistic powers. The Petrified Forest, from 1935, was a commercial success and is considered his most successful artistic piece. The following year, his Idiot’s Delight won a Pulitzer Prize for drama. He won a second Pulitzer in 1938, when Abe Lincoln in Illinois was produced and a third in 1940 for There Shall Be No Night. It was through Abe Lincoln in Illinois that he began a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His friendship led to several government appointments during World War II, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of War in 1940, director of the oversees branch of the Office of War Information in 1942, and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy in 1945. It also led to a book about the president called Roosevelt and Hopkins, which won Sherwood yet another Pulitzer Prize in 1948. Sherwood is most remembered today for his work in Hollywood where he wrote some of the finest screenplays of the thirties and forties. These screenplays include the adaptations of his own stage works and the script for The Best Years of Our Lives, which won numerous

Academy Awards in 1946. Sherwood died on November 14, 1955.