Thomas Alexander Boyd

Thomas Alexander Boyd
Born	(1898-07-03) July 3, 1898 Defiance, Ohio
Died	January 27, 1935(1935-01-27) (aged 36)
Occupation	Journalist, novelist
Nationality	American
Notable works	Through the Wheat

Thomas Alexander Boyd (July 3, 1898 – January 27, 1935) was an American journalist and novelist, born in Defiance, Ohio.

Boyd was raised by his mother's family due to his father's death before he was born. While still in school, he and a friend enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and saw service in France during World War One, where he was gassed in 1918.

Upon discharge from the occupation forces in 1919, Boyd tried several occupations before becoming a writer for newspapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. He opened a bookstore, Kilmarnock Books, in St. Paul, which became the locus of literary figures, including Sinclair Lewis. He was urged to write and produced the 1923 novel Through the Wheat, based in part on his own war experiences and set partly during the Battle of Belleau Wood. Another war novel, The Dark Cloud, followed in 1924, and a book of short stories, Point of Honor, in 1925. Boyd later remarried and became interested in Socialist causes during the Depression, eventually running as the Communist candidate for governor of Vermont.

He died suddenly in 1935 of a stroke.

Selected works

• Through the Wheat (1923) novel
• The Dark Cloud (1924) novel
• Points of Honor (1925) stories
• Shadow of the Long Knives (1928) novel
• Simon Girty, the White Savage (1928) biography
• Mad Anthony Wayne (1929) biography
• Light-Horse Harry Lee (1931) biography
• Poor John Fitch (1935) biography
• In Time of Peace (1935) novel

External links

• Works by Thomas Boyd at Project Gutenberg
• Thomas Boyd Research Notes for Poor John Fitch at Dartmouth College Library