Frank Yerby

Frank Garvin Yerby ( – ) was an American writer, best known for his 1946 historical novel The Foxes of Harrow.

Early life Yerby was born in Augusta, Georgia, on September 5, 1916, the second of four children of Rufus Garvin Yerby (1886–1961), a hotel doorman, and Wilhelmina Ethel Yerby (née Smythe) (1888–1960), a teacher. Yerby's ancestry was Black, White, and Native American. Yerby would later refer to himself as "a young man whose list of ancestors read like a mini-United Nations." One of Yerby's siblings was Alonzo Yerby, Associate Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and New York City Hospitals Commissioner.

As a child, Yerby attended Augusta's Haines Institute, a private school for African Americans founded by Lucy Laney, from which he graduated in 1933. In 1937, he graduated from Paine College with a B.A. in English, and earned his M.A. in Dramatic Arts from Fisk University in 1938. He would continue to publish poetry and short stories while he was a student at Paine College and Fisk University. While he was a student at the University of Chicago, he worked for the Federal Writers' Project, writing about religious groups he observed on the south side of Chicago as part of the social history The Negro in Illinois under the supervision of the dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham.

Yerby continued to publish short stories and wrote the manuscript of a protest novel, "This is My Own," about a black steel worker turned boxer who comes to a tragic end while he worked in the defense industry. That manuscript was rejected, but the editor Muriel Fuller of Redbook encouraged him to send her something else. He sent her the short story "Health Card." She decided it was unsuitable for Redbook, but she sent it to Harper's, which published it in 1944.

In some quarters, Yerby is best known for his masterpiece The Dahomean (1971).

Private life Yerby married Flora Helen Claire Williams (1921 - 2001) in 1941. They had four children. The couple separated in 1955, and their divorce was finalized in 1956. Yerby married Blanca Calle-Perez in 1956.

In 2023, the Georgia Historical Society, in partnership with the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History, Haines Alumni Association, and Paine College, erected a Georgia historical marker in Augusta, Georgia recognizing the life and career of Frank Yerby.

In popular media Uncle Percy in Thomas Mullen's Darktown is partly based on Frank Yerby.

George R. R. Martin cites Frank Yerby as an influence on his own writing.

Novels

The Foxes of Harrow (1946) (filmed under the same name), the sixth best-selling novel in the US in 1946. The Vixens (1947), the fifth best-selling novel in the US in 1947. The Golden Hawk (1948) (filmed under the same name) Pride's Castle (1949) Floodtide (1950) A Woman Called Fancy (1951) The Saracen Blade (1952) (filmed under the same name) The Devil's Laughter (1953) Bride of Liberty (1954) Benton's Row (1954) The Treasure of Pleasant Valley (1955) Captain Rebel (1956) Fairoaks (1957) The Serpent and the Staff (1958, with jacket by George Adamson) Jarrett's Jade (1959) Gillian (1960)

The Garfield Honor (1961) Griffin's Way (1962) The Old Gods Laugh (1964) An Odor of Sanctity (1965) Goat Song (1967) Judas, My Brother (1968) Speak Now (1969) The Dahomean (1971, later published as The Man from Dahomey) The Girl From Storeyville (1972) The Voyage Unplanned (1974) Tobias and the Angel (1975) A Rose for Ana Maria (1976) Hail the Conquering Hero (1977) A Darkness at Ingraham's Crest (1979) Western: A Saga of the Great Plains (1982) Devilseed (1984) McKenzie's Hundred (1985)

Short stories "Salute to the Flag" (The Paineite 16, November, 1936, pp. 4, 13, 23) "Love Story" (The Paineite 16, February, 1937, pp. 15 – 16) "A Date with Vera" (The Fisk Herald 31, October, 1937, pp. 16 – 17) "Young Man Afraid" (The Fisk Herald 31, November, 1937, pp. 10 – 11) "The Thunder of God" (The Anvil 1, April–May, 1939, pp. 5 – 8) "Health Card" (Harper's 188, May, 1944, pp. 548 – 553) "White Magnolias" (Phylon 5, Fourth Quarter, 1944, pp. 319 – 326) "Roads Going Down" (Common Ground 5, Summer, 1945, pp. 67 – 72) "My Brother Went to College" (Tomorrow 5, January, 1946, pp. 9 – 12) "The Homecoming" (Common Ground 6, Spring, 1946, pp. 41 – 47)

Veronica T. Watson published an anthology of Frank Yerby's short stories, The Short Stories of Frank Yerby (2020). It includes five previously published and eleven previously unpublished short stories.

Poems "Miracles" (New Challenge 1, September, 1934, p. 27) "Brevity" (New Challenge 1, September, 1934, p. 27) "To a Seagull" (New Challenge 1, May, 1935, p. 15) "Three Sonnets" (Challenge 1, January, 1936, pp. 11 – 12) "Weltschmerz" (Shards 4, Spring, 1936, p. 9) "Wisdom" (Arts Quarterly 1, July - September, 1937, p. 34) "Calm After Storm" (Shards 4, Spring, 1936, p. 20) "All I Have Known" (The Fisk Herald 31, November, 1937, p. 14) "You Are a Part of Me" (The Fisk Herald 31, December, 1937, p. 15) "Bitter Lotus" (The Fisk Herald 31, December, 1937, p. 22) "The Fishes and the Poet's Hands" (The Fisk Herald 31, January, 1938, pp. 10 – 11)

Magazine articles "How and Why I Write the Costume Novel" (Harper's 219, October, 1959, pp. 145–150)

Journal articles "A Brief Historical Sketch of the Little Theater in the Negro College" (The Quarterly Journal of Florida A&M University 10, 1940, pp. 27 – 32) "Problems Confronting the Little Theater in the Negro College" (Southern University Bulletin 27, 1941, pp. 96 – 103)

Film adaptations The Foxes of Harrow (1947) The Golden Hawk (1952) The Saracen Blade (1954),