Edward Fenton Elwin

Edward Fenton was born in New York City on July 7, 1917, to Henry and Fannie (Golden) Fenton. At various times, he attended Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts; worked for the New York Herald Tribune; and ran a bookshop. He served in North Africa during World War II with the American Field Service and the British Eighth Army. About the same time, Fenton began publishing poems and stories in several periodicals. His first novel, Us and the Duchess (1947), first appeared as a serial in a children's magazine. Fenton worked in the department of prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City between 1950 and 1955, but left his position to write full time. He purchased a 143-acre farm in Duchess County, New York, with the revenue from the sale of the movie rights for The Golden Doors (1957). The farm served as the setting for The Phantom of Walkaway Hill (1961) and its sequel, The Riddle of the Red Whale (1966). The former earned the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best juvenile mystery in 1962.