Robert Ruark - (1915-1965)
|
Fuquay-Varina High School in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina
I. Upbringing, Education, Family and Professional Life
Robert Chester Ruark, Jr. was born on December 29, 1915, in Wilmington, North Carolina. During the summers of his childhood, Ruark stayed at his grandfather's house in Southport, North Carolina. At the age of fifteen, Ruark attended the University of North Carolina. He majored in journalism and graduated with an A. B. in June 1935. Ruark worked as a reporter for the Hamlet News Messenger in North Carolina, and later transferred to the Sanford Herald. He was unhappy with his work as a journalist, and almost left the field. Ruark's next occupation was being an accountant with the Works Progress Administration in Washington, D.C. In 1936, Ruark enlisted as an ordinary seaman for one term with the Merchant Marine, then worked as a copy boy at the Washington Post. He worked at the Star , and finally settled down at the Washington Daily News. In 1938, Ruark married Virginia Webb, an interior decorator from Washington, D.C.
During World War II, Ruark joined the Navy as a gunnery officer on many ships in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. Later he became a press censor under Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific Ocean. He returned in 1945 to the Washington Daily News in 1945 to become a Scripps Howard syndicated columnist. In 1947, Ruark's first novel, Grenadine Etching, was published. His articles were also being published in the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Pic, Esquire, and Field and Stream. In 1948 I Didn't Know It Was Loaded was published, and, in 1949, One for the Road was published.
Ruark took a year off after 1950, and spent his time big-game hunting in Africa. He wrote many novels of his experiences, including Grenadine's Spawn (1952), Horn of the Hunter (1953), Something of Value (1955). Something of Value was a major success, and Ruark made over one million dollars on royalties and the film rights, which were sold to Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Ruark settled in Spain in 1957, and he wrote three autobiographical novels: The Old Man and the Boy (1957), Poor No More (1959), and The Old Man's Boy Grows Older (1961). Uhuru was published in 1962, and Ruark's final book, The Honey Badger, was published in 1964. In June of 1965, Ruark died of a heart attack in London, England.
II. Literary Works
Horn of the Hunter:
Horn of the Hunter is the nonfiction account of Robert Ruark and Virginia's two-month safari in British East Africa in the early 1950s. Many stories of Ruark's adventures with a
group of natives and the professional hunter Harry Selby are described in this book. Ruark's photographs, drawings, and philosophies are intertwined in the hunting stories.
The Old Man and the Boy:
The Old Man and the Boy is the account of the summers Ruark spent with his grandfather in Southport, North Carolina. Ruark believed his grandfather was teaching him how to fish
and hunt during those summers; however, he was really learning valuable lessons about life.
Uhuru:
Uhuru, which was a Book of the Month Club selection, is about a widow named Charlotte
Stuart. Charlotte attempts to settle five hundred native families on her Kenyan plantation in hopes of eventually deeding the land to them. Temporarily, the project is successful, but it ultimately fails.
III. Literary Works
Grenadine Etching (1947)
I Didn't Know It Was Loaded (1948)
One For The Road (1949)
Grenadine's Spawn (1952)
Horn of the Hunter (1953)
Something of Value (1955)
The Old Man and the Boy (1957)
Poor No More (1959)
The Old Man's Boy Grows Older (1961)
Uhuru (1962)
The Honey Badger (1964)
IV. Sources
Poe, Clarence and Charles Aycock Poe. Poe-pourri: A North Carolina Cavalde. Raleigh, North Carolina Robert Chester Ruara: Charles Aycock Poe, 1987.
Robert Chester Ruark, Jr. Papers Inventory. Powell, William S., ed. UNC Library 1994. 30 October 2000.
This essay was submitted by a student of Rita Achenbach, a teacher at Fuquay-Varina High School in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina.