Peter S. Beagle | |
---|---|
Born | Peter Soyer Beagle April 20, 1939 New York City, US |
Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter |
Period | 1960–present |
Genre | Fantasy |
Notable works | The Last Unicorn |
Notable awards | Hugo Award 2006 Nebula Award Contents
2018 |
Peter Soyer Beagle (born April 20, 1939) is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially of fantasy fiction. [1] His best-known work is The Last Unicorn (1968) which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. [2] During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards, including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. [3] He was named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by SFWA in 2018. [4]
Beagle was born in Manhattan on April 20, 1939, the son of Simon Beagle and Rebecca Soyer. Three of his uncles were noted painters: Moses, Raphael, and Isaac Soyer.[ citation needed ]
Beagle has said that The Wind in the Willows , a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, originally attracted him to the genre of fantasy. [5]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(April 2024) |
Beagle was raised in Bronx, New York, and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1955. He garnered early recognition from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, winning a scholarship to University of Pittsburgh for a poem he submitted as a high school senior. He went on to graduate from the university with a degree in creative writing. Following a year overseas, Beagle held the graduate Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University, where he overlapped with Ken Kesey, Gurney Norman, and Larry McMurtry.
Beagle wrote his first novel, A Fine and Private Place , when he was 19 years old, following it with a memoir, I See by My Outfit, in 1965.
He wrote an introduction for an American print edition of The Lord of the Rings . He and Chris Conkling co-wrote the screenplay for the 1978 Ralph Bakshi-animated version of The Lord of the Rings . Two decades later he wrote the teleplay for "Sarek", episode 71 of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation .
With David Carlson as composer Beagle adapted his story "Come, Lady Death" into the libretto for an opera, The Midnight Angel, which premiered at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 1993. [6]
In 2005, Beagle published a coda to The Last Unicorn, a novelette entitled "Two Hearts", and began work on a full-novel sequel. Two Hearts won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2006 and the parallel Nebula Award in 2007. It was also nominated as a short fiction finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Beagle also received a special Inkpot Award in 2006 for Outstanding Achievement in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and in 2007 the inaugural WSFA Small Press Award for "El Regalo", published in The Line Between (Tachyon Publications). [3]
He is also a winner of the Jack Trevor Story Cup, also known as the Prix du Goncourt, awarded to an outstanding humorous writer.[ citation needed ]
IDW Publishing released a six-issue comic book adaptation of The Last Unicorn beginning in April 2010. The collected hardcover edition was released in January 2011, premiering at #2 on the New York Times Hardcover Graphic Novel bestseller list.
Beagle's 2009 collection of short fiction, We Never Talk About My Brother, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. [3]
In 2013, he collaborated with the musician Phildel on a new track "Dark Water Down", mixing poetry and music. They then appeared together at a gig at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco. [7]
Beagle's book The Last Unicorn was made into an animated film of the same name in 1982, based on a screenplay written by Beagle himself. In 1979, Beagle had a contract with ITC Entertainment, which entitled Beagle to 5% of the net profits in the animated property, and 5% of the gross revenues from any film-related merchandising. Since 1999 this film has been controlled by a British company, Granada Media International (a subsidiary of ITV plc).
From 2003 through 2011, Beagle was involved in a financial dispute with Granada over nonpayment of contractually due profit and merchandising shares. On July 29, 2011, Beagle announced at his Otakon appearance that he and ITV had reached an agreement that was beneficial to all parties, and should please fans of The Last Unicorn. On October 14, 2011, at his New York Comic Con appearance, he announced the first results of the deal.[ citation needed ]
Beagle sued his former manager Connor Cochran in 2015 for $52 million. The Alameda County Superior Court judge Michael M. Markman found Cochran liable for financial elder abuse, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty, awarding Beagle $325,000, as well as an additional $7500 for defamation, and an undetermined amount in attorney's fees. [8]
Cochran declared bankruptcy sixteen hours before the trial was due to begin. Beagle was unable to collect the money Cochran owed, and the rights to Beagle's work were left in legal limbo. In February 2021, Beagle regained the intellectual property rights. [9]
These five audiobooks are unabridged readings by Beagle, except the first, which is abridged. Giant Bones is a collection of short fiction; the others are novels.
Source:The Locus Index to SF Awards [3]
These are annual "best of the year" literary awards, with three exceptions (‡).
In 1987, Locus ranked The Last Unicorn number five among the 33 all-time best fantasy novels, based on a poll of subscribers. [2] The 1998 rendition of the poll considered many book series as single entries and ranked The Last Unicorn number 18. [23]
Timothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. His first major novel was The Drawing of the Dark (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was The Anubis Gates (1983), which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages. His other written work include Dinner at Deviant's Palace (1985), Last Call (1992), Expiration Date (1996), Earthquake Weather (1997), Declare (2000), and Three Days to Never (2006). Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare. His 1987 novel On Stranger Tides served as inspiration for the Monkey Island franchise of video games and was optioned for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film.
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The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press in the U.S. and The Bodley Head in the U.K. It follows the tale of a unicorn, who believes she is the last of her kind in the world and undertakes a quest to discover what has happened to the other unicorns. It has sold more than six million copies worldwide since its original publication, and has been translated into at least twenty-five languages.
Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.
"Two Hearts" is a fantasy novelette by American author Peter S. Beagle, written in 2004 as a coda to The Last Unicorn (1968), despite his decades-long reluctance to continue the original story. It was first published as the cover story of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine issue dated October/November 2005. It can also be found in Beagle's short story collection The Line Between ; in the deluxe edition of The Last Unicorn ; The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology ; and Mirror Kingdoms: The Best Of Peter S. Beagle.
The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version is a fantasy novella by Peter S. Beagle, a preliminary version of the original manuscript of The Last Unicorn (1968), originally written in 1962. It was printed as a 1,000-copy limited edition hardcover by Subterranean Press in 2006.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #11 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the eleventh volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Pocket Books in July 1982, and in hardcover by Gollancz in the same year.
Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction of the Year #15 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the fifteenth volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in August 1986 and in hardcover and paperback by Gollancz in October of the same year, under the alternate title Best SF of the Year #15.
Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #16 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the sixteenth and last volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in hardcover by Tor Books in September 1987. The first British editions were published in hardcover and paperback by Gollancz in December of the same year, under the alternate title Best SF of the Year #16.
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