Herman Wouk (Author of The Winds of War)

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Herman Wouk

Born

in New York, New York, The United States

May 27, 1915

Died

May 17, 2019

Website

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Religion & Spirituality

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Herman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.

Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell Herman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.

Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.

Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.

While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.

He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."

In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.

Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday. ...more

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Herman Wouk鈥檚 books

Average rating: 4.3 · 155,888 ratings · 7,576 reviews · 176 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1) 4.38 avg rating — 58,775 ratings — published 1971 — 120 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	War and Remembrance (The Henry Family, #2) 4.43 avg rating — 38,835 ratings — published 1978 — 116 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Caine Mutiny 4.29 avg rating — 26,346 ratings — published 1951 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Marjorie Morningstar 3.98 avg rating — 9,133 ratings — published 1955 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hope (The Hope and the Glory, #1) 4.21 avg rating — 4,661 ratings — published 1993 — 59 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Don't Stop the Carnival 3.93 avg rating — 3,857 ratings — published 1965 — 68 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Glory (The Hope and the Glory, #2) 4.34 avg rating — 2,841 ratings — published 1994 — 49 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Youngblood Hawke 4.22 avg rating — 2,329 ratings — published 1962 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Inside, Outside 4.04 avg rating — 1,632 ratings — published 1985 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	City Boy 4.10 avg rating — 1,376 ratings — published 1948 — 57 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Herman Wouk…

Series by Herman Wouk

The Henry Family (2 books)
by

Herman Wouk

4.40 avg rating — 97,610 ratings

The Hope and the Glory (2 books)
by

Herman Wouk

4.26 avg rating — 7,502 ratings

Quotes by Herman Wouk (?)

“When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”
― Herman Wouk

tags: danger, humor

1196 likes

“This life is slow suicide, unless you read.”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

67 likes

“Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.”
― Herman Wouk, The Winds of War

64 likes

See all Herman Wouk's quotes »

Polls

October 2016 Revisit the Shelf Poll

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 273 pages, 1818

28 votes, 17.6%

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garc铆颅a M谩rquez, 457, 1967

24 votes, 15.1%

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, 507 pages, 1814

19 votes, 11.9%

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, 496 pages, 1943

18 votes, 11.3%

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, 672 pages, 1859

14 votes, 8.8%

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, 192 pages, 1962

12 votes, 7.5%

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, 489 pages, 1859

11 votes, 6.9%

Les Mis茅rables by Victor Hugo, 1463 pages, 1862

9 votes, 5.7%

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, 144 pages, 1886

8 votes, 5.0%

The Good Soldier 艩vejk by Jaroslav Ha拧ek, 752 pages, 1921

6 votes, 3.8%

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk, 560 pages, 1951

6 votes, 3.8%

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 982 pages, 1615

4 votes, 2.5%

159 total votes

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Herman Wouk

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