Guy Endore
| Guy Endore | |
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Guy Endore (date unknown)
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| Born | Samuel Goldstein July 4, 1901 Brooklyn, New York |
| Died | February 12, 1970 (aged 68) |
| Occupation | Writer, screenwriter |
| Language | English |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Notable works | The Werewolf of Paris (1933) |
Samuel Guy Endore (July 4, 1901 – February 12, 1970), born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was an American novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished. A cult favorite of fans of horror, he is best known for his novel The Werewolf of Paris, which occupies a significant position in werewolf literature, much in the same way that Dracula does for fans of vampires. Endore is also known for his left-wing novel of the Haitian Revolution, Babouk: The Story of A Slave. He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and his novel Methinks the Lady . . . (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht's screenplay for Whirlpool (1949).
Endore was born Samuel Goldstein in Brooklyn, New York, to Isidor and Malka Halpern Goldstein. His father was a coal miner, inventor, and investor from Pittsburgh who often had difficulty making ends meet. His mother committed suicide when he was four, possibly due to the family's unstable and often insufficient livelihood. Isidor changed their name in an attempt to move beyond the events of the past, and he placed the children in a Methodist orphanage. During this time, Isidor sold an invention and dreamt that his dead wife willed the children to have a European education, so he sent them to Vienna with the newfound windfall. The children lived in Vienna for five years under the care of a Catholic governess, but when Isidor disappeared and their funds ran short, they returned to Pittsburgh and lived together.
While there Endore attended the Carnegie Technical Institute but would earn his B.A. (1923) and M.A. (1925), both in European languages, at Columbia University. According to his own account, he scraped together the money to attend, even renting out his bed to a wealthier student while he slept on the floor. He unsuccessfully pursued a Ph.D.
Endore's first novel was The Man From Limbo (1930), about an impoverished college graduate obsessed with acquiring wealth; it was influenced by Robert Louis Stevenson.
His most famous work was The Werewolf of Paris (1933), a violent horror story set during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune and inspired by the work of Hanns Heinz Ewers, whom Endore had translated. The Werewolf of Paris is described by Stableford as "entitled to be considered the werewolf novel". Endore also wrote what Stableford describes "a few notable horror stories", including "The Day of the Dragon", (1934) in which a scientific experiment returns dragons to the contemporary world, and "Lazarus Returns",(1935) an ironic tale involving the Biblical character.
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