Hervey Allen

William Hervey Allen Jr. (December 8, 1889 – December 28, 1949) was an American educator, poet, and writer. He is best known for his work Anthony Adverse (made into a 1936 movie of the same name), regarded by many critics "as the model and precursor of the contemporary American historical novel."

Early life

Allen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 8, 1889, to William Hervey Allen and Helen Ebey Myers. He graduated from Shady Side Academy in 1909. He was a midshipman with the United States Navy from 1909 to 1910, and attended the United States Naval Academy from 1910 to 1911 when he was honorably discharged due to a track and field injury.

Allen received a BS in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1915 where he contributed to the humor magazine The Pitt Panther. While at college, he also became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

Allen served as a 2nd lieutenant in the 18th Pennsylvania Infantry on the Mexican border in 1916 during the Pancho Villa Expedition. That year he published a collection of poems, Ballads of the Border. He also served as a lieutenant, and later a company commander of Company "B" of the 1st Battalion, 111th Infantry Regiment of the 28th (keystone) Division, United States Army during World War I and fought in the Aisne-Marne offensive July–August 1918. He was wounded in action at Fismes in August 1918. He also taught English to French soldiers at Favernay.

Academic career

Allen became a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. For a period of time, he taught at the Porter Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina. He also taught English at Charleston High School which at that time, although public, was only for boys (girls went to Memminger High School.) There he met and befriended DuBose Heyward. They collaborated on a volume of poems, Carolina Chansons (1922).