Charles Grandison Finney (December 1, 1905 – April 16, 1984) was an American news editor and fantasy novelist, the great-grandson of evangelist

Charles Grandison Finney Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Revivalism." Finney rejected much of trad ...

. His first novel and most famous work, '' The Circus of Dr. Lao'', won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: the Most Original Book of 1935. "Books and Authors". ''The New York Times''. April 12, 1936 (p. BR12). "Lewis is Scornful of Radio Culture: ...". ''The New York Times''. May 12, 1936 (p. 25).

Biography

Finney was born in

Sedalia, Missouri Sedalia is a city located approximately south of the Missouri River and, as the county seat of Pettis County, Missouri, United States, it is the principal city of the Sedalia Micropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had ...

, and served in

Tientsin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

, China, with the U.S. Army 15th Infantry Regiment (E Company) from 1927 to 1929. In his memoirs, he notes that ''The Circus of Dr. Lao'' was conceived in

during 1929. After the Army, he worked as an editor for the '' Arizona Daily Star'' in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

from 1930 to 1970. Some of Finney's papers, with correspondence and photographs, are collected at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Main Library Special Collections, Collection Number: AZ 024, ''Papers of Charles G. Finney, 1959-1966''. The archive includes typed manuscripts of "A Sermon at Casa Grande", "Isabelle the Inscrutable", "Murder with Feathers", "The Night Crawler", "Private Prince", "An Anabasis in Minor Key", "The Old China Hands", and "The Ghosts of Manacle".

Influence

Finney's work, especially ''The Circus of Dr. Lao'', has been influential on subsequent writers of fantasy.

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...

admired the novel and anthologized it in '' The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories''; Bradbury's '' Something Wicked This Way Comes'' shares with ''Dr. Lao'' the setting of a supernatural circus.

Arthur Calder-Marshall Arthur Calder-Marshall (19 August 1908 – 17 April 1992) was an English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist, and biographer. Life and career Calder-Marshall was born in El Misti, Woodcote Road, Wallington, Surrey, the son of Alice (Poole) ...

's ''The Fair to Middling'' (1959),

Tom Reamy Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in '' Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a characte ...

's '' Blind Voices'' (1978), Peter S. Beagle's ''

The Last Unicorn ''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 wor ...

'' (1968)Cathy Dunn MacRae. ''Presenting Young Adult Fantasy Fiction''. Twayne Publishers, 1998 (p. 324). and Jonathan Lethem's ''

Chronic City ''Chronic City'' (2009) is a novel by American author Jonathan Lethem. Summary Lethem began work on ''Chronic City'' in early 2007, and has said that the novel is "set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it’s strongly influenced by Saul Bel ...

'' (2009)Jeffrey Renaud
"Lethem Exits the Unknown with ''Omega''"
Comic Book Resources. July 18, 2008. Retrieved June 21, 2010. were all influenced by Finney's work. It was adapted to film as ''

7 Faces of Dr. Lao ''7 Faces of Dr. Lao'' is a 1964 American Metrocolor Western fantasy-comedy film directed by George Pal (his final directorial effort) and starring Tony Randall. The film, an adaptation of the 1935 novel ''The Circus of Dr. Lao'' by Charles G. ...

''.

Selected works

Books

* '' The Circus of Dr. Lao'' (1935) * ''The Unholy City'' (1937) * ''Past the End of the Pavement'' (1939), collection * ''The Ghosts of Manacle'' (1964), collection * ''The Old China Hands'' (1961), memoir of service with the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

15th Infantry in

, China * '' The Magician Out of Manchuria'' (1968)

Short stories

* "The Iowan's Curse", '' Harper's Magazine'', July 1958"Charles G. (Charles Grandison) Finney"
Harper's Magazine (harpers.org). * "The Life and Death of a Western Gladiator", ''Harper's Magazine'', October 1958
"The Gilashrikes"
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'', October 1959 * "The Night Crawler", ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', December 5, 1959 * "An Anabasis in Minor Key", ''The New Yorker'', March 26, 1960 * "Private Prince", ''The New Yorker'', June 24, 1961 * "A Sermon at Casa Grande", ''Point West'', September 1963 * "Isabelle the Inscrutable", ''Harper's Magazine'', 228:1367 (April 1964) pp. 51–58 * "Murder with Feathers", ''Harper's Magazine'' 232:1391 (April 1966) pp. 112–13

Play

* Project Number Six (1962)

References

External links

Charles Grandison Finney
at AuthorAndBookInfo.com
Charles G. Finney
at Great SF & Fantasy Works (greatsfandf.com) * *
Charles Grandison Finney
Papers at University of Arizona {{DEFAULTSORT:Finney, Charles G. 1905 births 1984 deaths 20th-century American novelists American fantasy writers American male journalists 20th-century American journalists American male novelists People from Sedalia, Missouri Novelists from Missouri National Book Award winners Place of death missing American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers