David Eddings

David Carroll Eddings (July 7, 1931 – June 2, 2009) was an American fantasy writer. With his wife Leigh, he authored several best-selling epic fantasy novel series, including ''The Belgariad'' (1982–84), '' The Malloreon'' (1987–91), '' The Elenium'' (1989–91), '' The Tamuli'' (1992–94), and '' The Dreamers'' (2003–06).

Early life and career

Eddings was born in Spokane, Washington, to George Wayne Eddings and Theone (Berge) Eddings, in 1931. Eddings was known to claim to be part Cherokee.

Eddings grew up near Puget Sound in the City of Snohomish. After graduating from Snohomish High School in 1949, he worked for a year before majoring in speech, drama and English at junior college. Eddings displayed an early talent for drama and literature, winning a national oratorical contest, and performing the male lead in most of his drama productions. He graduated with a BA from Reed College in 1954, writing his first novel, ''How Lonely Are The Dead'', as his senior thesis. After graduating from Reed College, Eddings was drafted into the U.S. Army,David and Leigh Eddings, The Rivan Codex, , p. 10 having also previously served in the National Guard. After being discharged in 1956, Eddings attended the graduate school of the University of Washington in Seattle for four years, graduating with an MA in 1961 after submitting a novel in progress, ''Man Running'', for his thesis.

After earning his Master's, Eddings worked as a purchaser for Boeing, where he met his future wife, then known as Judith Leigh Schall. They married in 1962, she taking the name Leigh Eddings, and through most of the 1960s, Eddings worked as an assistant professor at Black Hills State College in South Dakota.

Child abuse conviction

Eddings and his wife Leigh pled guilty to 11 counts of physical child abuse of their adopted children. They adopted one boy in 1966, Scott David, then two months old, and subsequently adopted a girl between 1966 and 1969. In 1970 the couple lost custody of both children and were each sentenced to a year in jail in separate trials for extensive child abuse of both children. Though the trial and conviction of both David and Leigh Eddings was reported in the local press, the news was not widely disseminated, as Eddings was an obscure academic at the time. The conviction was consequently not remarked on after Eddings became a well-known author over a decade later, and was not widely publicly revealed until after his death.

Literary career

Early literary career

Eddings had completed the first draft of his first published novel, '' High Hunt'', in March 1971 while serving his jail term. ''High Hunt'' was a contemporary story of four young men hunting deer. Like many of his later novels, it explores themes of manhood and coming of age. Convinced that being an author was his future career, after a short period in Denver, David and Leigh Eddings moved to Spokane, where he relied on a job at a grocery shop for his funds. ''High Hunt'' was published in early 1972 by G. P. Putnam's Sons to modestly positive reviews.

Eddings continued to work on several unpublished novels, including ''Hunseeker's Ascent'', a story about mountain climbing, which was later burned, as Eddings claimed it was "a piece of tripe so bad it even bored me."David and Leigh Eddings, ''The Rivan Codex'', , p. 11 Most of his attempts followed the same vein as ''High Hunt'': adventure stories and contemporary tragedies. None were sold or published, with the eventual exception of ''The Losers'', which tells the story of God and the Devil cast in the roles of Raphael Taylor, gifted student and athlete, and Damon Flood, a scoundrel determined to bring Raphael down. Though written in the 1970s, ''The Losers'' was not published until June 1992, well after Eddings' success as an author was established.

Success in fantasy writing

Eddings doodled a fantasy map one morning before work. According to Eddings' account several years later, when seeing a copy of Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' in a bookshop, he muttered, "Is this old turkey still floating around?". He was surprised to learn that it was then in its 78th printing. He had, though, already included Tolkien's work in the syllabuses for at least three sections of his English Literature survey courses in the summer of 1967 and the springs of 1968 and 1969. He began to annotate the map doodle, which became the basis for his factional country of Aloria. Over the course of a year, Edding detailed around 250 pages of kingdoms, races, characters, theologies and a mythology.

As the ''Lord of the Rings'' had been published as three books, Eddings believed fantasy in general was supposed to be published in trilogy form. He initially laid out ''The Belgariad'' as three books, until his editor, Lester del Rey, advised him that booksellers would refuse to accept books of 600 pages. Del Rey suggested the series be published as five books. Eddings at first refused, but having already signed the contract, and with Del Rey's promise that he would receive advances for five books rather than three, agreed to the arrangement. '' Pawn of Prophecy'', the first volume in the series, was issued in April 1982. The next four novels where published between then and 1984. The series was popular. Eddings continued to produce fantasy novels for the rest of his life, usually producing a book every year or two.

From 1995 onwards, the novels were credited jointly to Leigh Eddings; Eddings explained in a foreword that their working together as authors "had been the case from the beginning." This is generally accepted as broadly accurate, although Eddings scholar James Gifford notes that collaboration would have been "impossible" with ''High Hunt'', as David Eddings' own notes show that the first draft was completed while he and Leigh were both in separate jails, about half-way through their terms.

The Eddingses' final work, the novel series '' The Dreamers'', was published in four volumes between 2003 and 2006.

Later life

On January 26, 2007, Eddings accidentally burned about a quarter of his office, next door to his house, along with his Excalibur sports car.

On February 28, 2007, David Eddings' wife Leigh died following a series of strokes that left her unable to communicate. She was 69. Eddings cared for her at home with her mother after her first stroke, which occurred three years before he finished writing ''The Dreamers''.

Eddings died of natural causes on June 2, 2009, in Carson City, Nevada.

Dennis, Eddings' brother, said that he had suffered from dementia for a long time, but that the disease had progressed rapidly since September 2008, and that he needed 24-hour care. He also confirmed that in his last months, his brother had been working on a manuscript that was unlike any of his other works, stating "It was very, very different. I wouldn't call it exactly a satire of fantasy but it sure plays with the genre". The unfinished work, along with his other manuscripts, went to his alma mater, Reed College, along with a bequest of $18 million to fund "students and faculty studying languages and literature." Eddings also bequeathed $10 million to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver for pediatric asthma treatment and research; Eddings' wife Leigh had asthma throughout her life.

Bibliography

References

External links

Interview
with David Eddings a
sffworld.com
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eddings, David
1931 births
2009 deaths
American fantasy writers
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
People from Carson City, Nevada
Writers from Spokane, Washington
Reed College alumni
University of Washington alumni
Writers from Nevada
American male novelists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Novelists from Washington (state)
American people who self-identify as being of Cherokee descent