Willard Price
Encyclopedia
Willard DeMille Price was a Canadian
-born American
natural historian
and author
of children's fiction
.
Price was born in Peterborough, Ontario
, and his family subsequently moved to the United States
when he was four. He acquired his MA
and Litt.D
from Columbia University
, before going on to edit the journal
s Survey and World Outlook. He travelled on many expeditions for the National Geographic Society
and the American Museum of Natural History
, in particular to Japan
. He documented his travels in a series of non-fiction books and also used them as inspiration for his Adventure
series of novels for young readers, which depict the exploits of teenage zoologists
Hal and Roger Hunt
.
Shortly before his death, in 1983, Price commented that:
Professor Laurie Barber of Waikato University (Hamilton, New Zealand
) has presented a case that Willard Price may have been spying for the United States, especially during his Japanese travels in the 1930s. In his biographical book 'My Own Life of Adventure', written shortly before his death he in fact documents how he did spy for the Americans against the Japanese. He was living on a Pacific Island at the time and was able to observe and report Japanese troop movements.
In 2006, the Price family sold the copyrights and related legal rights for the fourteen Adventure series
titles, plus the right to use Price's name, to London-based Fleming Literary Management.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
natural historian
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of children's fiction
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
.
Price was born in Peterborough, Ontario
Peterborough, Ontario
Peterborough is a city on the Otonabee River in southern Ontario, Canada, 125 kilometres northeast of Toronto. The population of the City of Peterborough was 74,898 as of the 2006 census, while the census metropolitan area has a population of 121,428 as of a 2009 estimate. It presently ranks...
, and his family subsequently moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
when he was four. He acquired his MA
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
and Litt.D
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, before going on to edit the journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
s Survey and World Outlook. He travelled on many expeditions for the National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
and the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, in particular to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. He documented his travels in a series of non-fiction books and also used them as inspiration for his Adventure
The Adventure Series (Willard Price)
The "Adventure" series is a collection of children's adventure novels by Canadian-born American author Willard Price. The fourteen-book series chronicles the exploits of budding teenage zoologists Hal and Roger Hunt, as they travel around the world capturing exotic and dangerous animals for their...
series of novels for young readers, which depict the exploits of teenage zoologists
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
Hal and Roger Hunt
Hal and Roger Hunt
Hal and Roger Hunt are fictional characters appearing in the children's Adventure novel series, by Canadian-born American author Willard Price. The sons of world-renowned animal collector John Hunt, Hal and Roger have grown up alongside exotic and dangerous wildlife...
.
Shortly before his death, in 1983, Price commented that:
My aim in writing the Adventure series for young people was to lead them to read by making reading exciting and full of adventure. At the same time I want to inspire an interest in wild animals and their behavior. Judging from the letters I have received from boys and girls around the world, I believe I have helped open to them the worlds of books and natural history.
Professor Laurie Barber of Waikato University (Hamilton, New Zealand
Hamilton, New Zealand
Hamilton is the centre of New Zealand's fourth largest urban area, and Hamilton City is the country's fourth largest territorial authority. Hamilton is in the Waikato Region of the North Island, approximately south of Auckland...
) has presented a case that Willard Price may have been spying for the United States, especially during his Japanese travels in the 1930s. In his biographical book 'My Own Life of Adventure', written shortly before his death he in fact documents how he did spy for the Americans against the Japanese. He was living on a Pacific Island at the time and was able to observe and report Japanese troop movements.
In 2006, the Price family sold the copyrights and related legal rights for the fourteen Adventure series
The Adventure Series (Willard Price)
The "Adventure" series is a collection of children's adventure novels by Canadian-born American author Willard Price. The fourteen-book series chronicles the exploits of budding teenage zoologists Hal and Roger Hunt, as they travel around the world capturing exotic and dangerous animals for their...
titles, plus the right to use Price's name, to London-based Fleming Literary Management.
The "Adventure" Series
- Amazon AdventureAmazon AdventureAmazon Adventure is a 1949 children's novel by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts an expedition to the Amazon River to capture animals for their father's wildlife collection business.-Allies:* Terry- The...
(1949) - South Sea AdventureSouth Sea AdventureSouth Sea Adventure is a 1952 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt....
(1952) - Underwater AdventureUnderwater AdventureUnderwater Adventure is a 1954 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt....
(1954) - Volcano AdventureVolcano AdventureVolcano Adventure is a 1956 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts a journey to several of the world's most dangerous volcanoes. The story involves the brothers meeting a volcanologist and deals...
(1956) - Whale AdventureWhale AdventureWhale Adventure is a 1960 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt....
(1960) - African AdventureAfrican AdventureAfrican Adventure is a 1963 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt....
(1963) - Elephant AdventureElephant AdventureElephant Adventure is a 1964 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It is set in the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda and depicts Hal and Roger's attempts to capture elephants for a zoo.-Enemies:Their...
(1964) - Safari AdventureSafari AdventureSafari Adventure is a 1966 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt....
(1966) - Lion AdventureLion AdventureLion Adventure is a 1967 children's novel by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt...
(1967) - Gorilla AdventureGorilla AdventureGorilla Adventure is a 1969 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts an expedition to capture a giant mountain gorilla for a circus....
(1969) - Diving AdventureDiving AdventureDiving Adventure is a 1970 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts their exploits in a futuristic underwater city....
(1970) - Cannibal AdventureCannibal AdventureCannibal Adventure is a 1972 children's novel by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts an expedition to New Guinea in search of such exotic creatures as Komodo dragons, bandicoots and dinosaur lizards, Hal and...
(1972) - Tiger AdventureTiger AdventureTiger Adventure is a 1979 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt. It depicts an expedition to India to capture animals, including tigers, for a zoo. They encounter an annoying city boy, named Vic Stone, who...
(1979) - Arctic AdventureArctic AdventureArctic Adventure is a 1980 children's book by the Canadian-born American author Willard Price featuring his "Adventure" series characters, Hal and Roger Hunt....
(1980)
Adult travel books
- A Real Revolution in China (1914)
- Ancient Peoples at New Tasks (1918, for the Missionary Education Movement)
- The Negro Around the World (1925)
- Rip Tide in the South Seas (1936)
- The South Sea Adventure: Through Japan’s Equatorial Empire (1936, published in the US as Pacific Adventure)
- Second edition: Japan's Islands of Mystery (1944)
- Japan Reaches Out (1938)
- Japan's New Horizons (1938)
- Children of the Rising Sun (1938)
- Where Are You Going, Japan? (1938)
- Japan Rides the Tiger (1942)
- Japan and the Son of Heaven (1945)
- Key to Japan (1946)
- Roving South: Rio Grande to Patagonia (1948)
- I Cannot Rest from Travel: An Autobiography of Adventure in Seventy Lands (1952)
- Journey by Junk: Japan After MacArthur (1953)
- Adventures in Paradise;: Tahiti and Beyond (1955)
- Roaming Britain: 8000 Miles Through England, Scotland and Wales (1958)
- The Amazing Amazon (1954)
- Incredible Africa (1962)
- The Amazing Mississippi (1963)
- Rivers I Have Known (1965)
- America's Paradise Lost (1966)
- Odd Way Round the World (1969)
- The Japanese Miracle and Peril (1971)
- My Own Life of Adventure: Travels in 148 Lands (1982)