Jon Manchip White is the Welsh American

Welsh American

Welsh Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Wales. In the 2008 U.S. Census community survey, an estimated 1.98 million Americans had Welsh ancestry, 0.6% of the total U.S. population. This compares with a population of 3 million in Wales. However,...

 author of more than thirty books of non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 and fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

, including Mask of Dust

Mask of Dust

Mask of Dust is a 1954 crime film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Richard Conte and Mari Aldon.-Cast:*Richard Conte as Peter Wells*Mari Aldon as Patricia Wells*Peter Illing as Tony Bellario*Alec Mango as Guido Rosetti...

, Nightclimber, Death By Dreaming, Solo Goya, and his latest novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

, Rawlins White: Patriot to Heaven, to be published in the second half of 2011. White is also the author of a number of plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

, teleplays, and screenplays.

Biography

White was born in 1924 in Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, to shipping company owner Gwilym Manchip White. When Jon was young his father contracted tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, and at the age of eight young Jon was sent away to boarding school

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to reduce his risk of infection.

White did well enough in school to earn an Exhibition

Exhibition (scholarship)

-United Kingdom and Ireland:At the universities of Dublin, Oxford and Cambridge, and at Westminster School, Eton College and Winchester College, and various other UK educational establishments, an exhibition is a financial award or grant to an individual student, normally on grounds of merit. The...

 in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 to St. Catharine's College at Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 in 1941, and studied there until enrolling in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 in 1943 to fight in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. After initially putting to sea helping to ferry men and supplies across the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

, White joined the Welsh Guards

Welsh Guards

The Welsh Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division.-Creation :The Welsh Guards came into existence on 26 February 1915 by Royal Warrant of His Majesty King George V in order to include Wales in the national component to the Foot Guards, "..though the order...

, where he served until the end of the war. On VE Day, White met his future wife, nurse Valerie Leighton.

White returned to Cambridge after his military service, and in 1950 he graduated with honors in English, prehistoric archaeology

Prehistoric archaeology

History is the study of the past using written records. Archaeology can also be used to study the past alongside history. Prehistoric archaeology is the study of the past before historical records began....

, and oriental languages, receiving a diploma

Diploma

A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...

 in anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

. White's Egyptology

Egyptology

Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...

 studies earned him an offer to work for the Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Department at the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, but he opted instead to become a story editor for the newly created BBC Television Service, where he read scripts and worked on episodes of his own, including serial adaptations of Elizabeth Gaskell's

Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson , often referred to simply as Mrs Gaskell, was a British novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era...

 Cra nford and his own Witch Hunt, famous - or notorious - for depicting the first, if brief, scene of a group of men and women, all naked, engaged in sexual congress.

After a brief stint in the British Foreign Service, White went back to writing for television and film, including five years spent traveling and living in exotic locales such as Madrid and Paris, as a script doctor with Samuel Bronston Productions

Samuel Bronston Productions

Samuel Bronston Productions was an independent American film production company, founded by Samuel Bronston in 1943.The company produced several epic films, the most notable of which are, John Paul Jones , King of Kings , El Cid , 55 Days at Peking and The Fall of the Roman Empire .The films were...

. There amongst other Bronston productions, he made contributions to such epic films as El Cid and 55 Days at Peking. He was also a script doctor on the science fiction film "The Day of the Triffids." Later he finished his movie career as Walt Disney's European story editor, based in Berlin. By 1962, White was back to writing for television, including writing an episode of The Avengers (Series 2 episode).

Throughout his film and television career, White was a prolific writer of novels and nonfiction, including books on travel, art and anthropology. In 1967 White left screenwriting and the UK behind to become writer-in-residence at the University of Texas at El Paso

University of Texas at El Paso

The University of Texas at El Paso is a four-year state university, and is a component institution of the University of Texas System. Its campus is located on the bank of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas. The school was founded in 1914 as The Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy,...

, where he began the school's creative writing department and eventually became a full professor. Ten years later White was hired by the Department of English at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where he became the Lindsay Young Professor of English and founded another creative writing department. He is Phi Beta Kappa and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the Welsh Academy.

Selected filmography

• Mask of Dust (1954) (adapted from his novel The Last Race; reissued in the US as Race for Life)
• A Day of Grace (1956)
• The Camp on Blood Island
  The Camp on Blood Island
  The Camp on Blood Island is a 1958 British World War II film, directed by Val Guest for Hammer Film Productions and starring Carl Möhner, André Morrel, Edward Underdown and Walter Fitzgerald....
  
  (1958)
• Mystery Submarine (1963) (aka Decoy)
• Crack in the World
  Crack in the World
  Crack in the World is an American science-fiction disaster movie filmed in Spain in 1964 and released by Paramount Pictures. While noted for its attempts at scientific accuracy, its premise—a crack in the solid crust of the Earth threatening life on it—was disproved by the conclusive...
  
  (1965)
• Naked Evil (1966) (aka Exorcism at Midnight in the US; based on his teleplay The Obi)

Fiction

• The Last Race • London (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953) New York (Mill, 1953) Also: made into the feature film Mask of Dust, which White co-wrote)
• Build Us A Dam • London (Hodder & Stoughton, 1955) Also: Corgi Books
• The Girl from Indiana • London (Hodder & Stoughton, 1956)
• No Home but Heaven • London (Hodder & Stoughton, 1957)
• The Mercenaries • London (Long, 1958) Also: Arrow Books and Major Books
• Hour of the Rat • London (Hutchinson, 1962) Also: Digit Books
• The Rose in the Brandy Glass • London (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965)
• Nightclimber • London (Chatto & Windus, 1968) New York (Morrow, 1968) Also: Sphere Books and Ace Books
• The Game of Troy • London (Chatto & Windus, 1971) New York (McKay, 1971), Also: Dell Books
• The Garden Game • London (Hodder & Stoughton, 1973) Indianapolis (Bobbe Merrill, 1974) Also: Pinnacle Books
• Send for Mr. Robinson • New York (Pinnacle, 1974) London (Panther, 1974)
• The Moscow Papers • Canoga Park, CA (Major Books, 1979)
• Death by Dreaming • Cambridge, MA (Apple-Wood Books, 1981)
• Fevers and Chills • Woodstock, VT (Foul Play Press, 1983 - Omnibus edition, featuring Nightclimber, The Game of Troy, and The Garden Game.
• The Last Grand Master • Woodstock, VT (Countryman Press, 1985)
• Whistling Past the Churchyard • New York (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1992 - collection of short stories)
• Echoes and Shadows • UK (Tartarus Press, 2003 - collection of short stories)
• Solo Goya • Oak Ridge, TN (Iris Press, 2007)
• Rawlins White: Patriot To Heaven • Oak Ridge, TN (Iris Press, 2011)

Nonfiction

• Ancient Egypt • London (Allen Wingate, 1952), New York (Crowell, 1953) London (Allen & Unwin, 1970)
• Anthropology • London (English Universities Press, 1954), New York (Philosophical Library, 1954)
• Marshal of France: The Life and times of Maurice, Comte de Saxe • London (Hamish Hamilton, 1962) Chicago (Rand McNally, 1962)
• Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt • London (Batsford, 1964) New York (Putman, 1965; Peter Bedrick, 1991, Also: Capricorn Books)
• Diego Velázques, Painter and Courtier • London (Hamish Hamilton, 1969) Chicago (Rand McNally, 1969)
• The Land God Made in Anger: Reflections on a Journey through South West Africa • London (Allen & Unwin, 1969) Chicago (Rand McNally, 1969)
• Cortés and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire • London (Hamish Hamilton, 1971) New York (St. Martin's Press, 1971; Carroll & Graf, 1989)
• A World Elsewhere: One Man’s Fascination with the American Southwest • New York (Crowell, 1975) London (as The Great American Desert - Allen & Unwin, 1976) Texas (Texas A&M Press, 1988)
• Everyday Life of the North American Indians • London (Batsford, 1979) New York (Holmes & Meier, 1979; Dorset Press, 1989)
• What to Do When the Russians Come: A Survivors’ Handbook (with Robert Conquest
  Robert Conquest
  George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
  
  )• New York (Stein & Day, 1984)
• The Journeying Boy: Scenes from a Welsh Childhood • New York (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991)

As Editor

• Life in Ancient Egypt by Adolf Erman • New York (Dover, 1970)
• The Tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter • New York (Dover, 1972)
• Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians by E. W. Lane • New York (Dover, 1973)
• Egypt & The Holy Land: Historic Photographs by Francis Frith (with Julia van Haaften) • New York (Dover, 1981) London (Constable, 1982)
• A History of the Ancient Egyptians by James Henry Breasted • New York (Peter Bedrick, 1991)
• Introduction to Old Calabria by Norman Douglas • Vermont (Marlboro Books, 1993)
• Introduction to Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson • Illinois (Marlboro/Northwestern, 1996)

Poetry Collections

• Dragon and Other Poems • London (Fortune Press, 1943)
• Salamander and Other Poems • London (Fortune Press, 1945)
• The Rout of San Romano • Aldington, Kent (Hand & Flower Press, 1952)
• The Mountain Lion • London (Chatto & Windrus, 1971)

Original Movies, Television and Radio Plays

• Avengers
• Camp on Blood Island
• Chariot of Fire
• The Circuit
• The Colonel
• Concerto for the Left Hand
• Counsel for the Queen
• Crack in the World
• Day of Grace
• Hour of the Rat
• Decoy
• Man with a Dog
• Mask of Dust
• Musk of Amber
• Mystery Submarine
• The Obi
• A Question of Honour
• The Rose in the Brandy Glass
• Second Fiddle
• Souvenir
• Victorian House
• Who Killed Menna Lorraine?
• Witch Hunt
• Wolf Pack

Television and Radio Adaptations

• Ace High (Peter Fleming)
• The Collection (Stefan Zweig)
• Cranford (Mrs. Gaskell)
• Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne)
• The Family Honour (Laurence Housman)
• Journey into Fear (Eric Ambler)
• Mrs. Dane's Defence (Henry Arthur Jones)
• Paolo and Francesca (Stephen Phillips)
• The Pistol Shot (Pushkin)
• The Reverberator (Henry James)
• The Wages of Fear (Georges Arnaud)
• The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)
• Witness for the Prosecution (Agatha Christie)

Compensated Contributor

• El Cid
• Fall of the Roman Empire
• 55 Days at Peking
• Day of the Triffids
• The Thin Red Line
• Steel Bayonet
• Ten Seconds to Hell
• Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes Films

Biographical Entries

Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series • Contemporary Novelists • Dictionary of International Biography • International Authors' Who's Who • Who's Who in America • Who's Who in the West and Southwest • Personalities of the South • Outstanding Educators of America • Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers • The Writers Directory

External links

• Extended biography, including link to bibliography, at irisbooks.com
• http://www.fandango.com/jonmanchipwhite/filmography/p116601Jon Manchip White Filmography at Fandango.com
  Fandango (ticket service)
  Fandango is a corporation in the United States that sells movie tickets over the telephone and Internet, enabling customers to ensure ticket availability and avoid lines at the movie theater.-Services:...
  
  ]
• Inventory of the Jon Manchip White Collection at Texas A&M, including the original screenplay of Crack in the World
• Inventory of the Jon Manchip White Collection of manuscripts at Boston University, Boston, MA.