Charles Nordhoff
| Charles Bernard Nordhoff | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 1, 1887 London, England |
| Died | April 10, 1947 (aged 60) Santa Barbara, California |
| Occupation | novelist, memoirist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1919–1947 |
| Genre | Adventure fiction |
| Subject | War memoir |
Charles Bernard Nordhoff (February 1, 1887 – April 10, 1947) was an American novelist and traveler, born in England.
Charles Nordhoff was born in London, England, on February 1, 1887, to American parents. His father was Walter Nordhoff, a wealthy businessman and author of The Journey of the Flame penned under the name "Antonio de Fierro Blanco". His mother, Sarah Cope Whitall, was of Pennsylvania Quaker stock. Nordhoff's parents returned to the United States with him in 1889, living first in Pennsylvania, then Rhode Island, and finally settling in California by 1898.
Charles Bernard Nordhoff's grandfather was Charles Nordhoff, a journalist and author of non-fiction books. Nordhoff himself showed an early interest in writing. His first published work was an article in an ornithological journal, written in 1902 when he was just fifteen. At seventeen, he entered Stanford University, but transferred after one year to Harvard.
After graduation in 1909, Nordhoff worked for his father's businesses, first spending two years in Mexico managing a sugar plantation, then four years as an executive of a tile and brick company in Redlands, California. He quit in 1916, signed up with the Ambulance Corps, and traveled to France. There he joined other American expatriates as a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille. He finished World War I as a lieutenant in the US Army Air Service.
After leaving the service, Nordhoff stayed on in Paris, France, where he worked as a journalist and wrote his first book, The Fledgling. In 1919, he and another former Lafayette Squadron pilot, James Norman Hall, who was also an author and journalist, were asked to write a history of that unit. Neither man had known the other during the war. Their first literary collaboration, The Lafayette Flying Corps, was published in 1920.
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