Daniel Keyes
Encyclopedia
Daniel Keyes is an American
author
best known for his Hugo award-winning short story
and Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon
. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus
honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
in 2000.
, New York City
, New York
. At age 17, he joined the U.S. Maritime Service as ship's purser
. He obtained a B.A.
in psychology
from Brooklyn College
, and after a stint in fashion photography
(partner in a photography studio), earned a Master's Degree
in English and American Literature
at night while teaching English in New York City public schools during the day and writing weekends.
In the early 1950s, he was editor of the pulp magazine
Marvel Science Fiction for publisher Martin Goodman
, who also published the comic book
lines Timely Comics
and Atlas Comics
, the 1940s and 1950s precursors, respectively, of Marvel Comics
. After Goodman ceased publishing pulps in favor of paperback books and men's adventure
magazines, Keyes became an associate editor of Atlas Comics, under editor-in-chief and art director
Stan Lee
. Circa 1952, Keyes was one of several staff writers, officially titled editors, who wrote for such horror
and science fiction
comics as Journey into Unknown Worlds, for which Keyes wrote two stories with artist Basil Wolverton
. From 1955-56, Keyes wrote for the celebrated EC Comics
, including its titles Shock Illustrated and Confessions Illustrated, under both his own name and the pseudonyms Kris Daniels, A.D. Locke and Dominik Georg.
and the expanded novel in 1966. The novel has been adapted several times for other media
, most prominently as the 1968 film Charly
, starring Cliff Robertson
(who won an Academy Award for Best Actor) and Claire Bloom
. He also won the Hugo Award
in 1959 and the Nebula Award
in 1966.
, and in 1966 he became an English and creative writing professor at Ohio University
, in Athens
, Ohio
, where he was honored as a professor emeritus in 2000.
A 1988 edition of his novel Flowers for Algernon states he was a member of the English department at Yale University
, in New Haven, Connecticut
, circa that year. This was an error in a special leatherbound collector's edition.
Keyes' other books include Fifth Sally, The Minds of Billy Milligan, The Touch, Unveiling Claudia, and the memoir Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey.
According to the author's website a new novel by Daniel Keyes, The Asylum Prophecies, was published in 2009 by Dorchester Publishing.
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
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:...
best known for his Hugo award-winning short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
and Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960...
. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus
Author Emeritus
Author Emeritus award is an honorary title bestowed by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. It was created "as a way to recognize and appreciate senior writers in the genres of science fiction and fantasy who have made significant contributions to our field but who are no longer...
honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
in 2000.
Early life and career
Keyes was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. At age 17, he joined the U.S. Maritime Service as ship's purser
Purser
The purser joined the warrant officer ranks of the Royal Navy in the early fourteenth century and existed as a Naval rank until 1852. The development of the warrant officer system began in 1040 when five English ports began furnishing warships to King Edward the Confessor in exchange for certain...
. He obtained a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
from Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
, and after a stint in fashion photography
Fashion photography
Fashion photography is a genre of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle...
(partner in a photography studio), earned a Master's Degree
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...
in English and American Literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
at night while teaching English in New York City public schools during the day and writing weekends.
In the early 1950s, he was editor of the pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Marvel Science Fiction for publisher Martin Goodman
Martin Goodman (publisher)
Martin Goodman born on was an American publisher of pulp magazines, paperback books, men's adventure magazines, and comic books, launching the company that would become Marvel Comics....
, who also published the comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
lines Timely Comics
Timely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
and Atlas Comics
Atlas Comics (1950s)
Atlas Comics is the term used to describe the 1950s comic book publishing company that would evolve into Marvel Comics. Magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic...
, the 1940s and 1950s precursors, respectively, of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
. After Goodman ceased publishing pulps in favor of paperback books and men's adventure
Men's adventure
Men's adventure is a genre of magazines that had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. Catering to a male audience, these magazines featured glamour photography and lurid tales of adventure that typically featured wartime feats of daring, exotic travel or conflict with wild animals.These magazines are...
magazines, Keyes became an associate editor of Atlas Comics, under editor-in-chief and art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
. Circa 1952, Keyes was one of several staff writers, officially titled editors, who wrote for such horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
comics as Journey into Unknown Worlds, for which Keyes wrote two stories with artist Basil Wolverton
Basil Wolverton
Basil Wolverton was an American cartoonist, illustrator, comic book writer-artist and professed "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet", whose many publishers included Marvel Comics and Mad.His unique, humorously grotesque drawings have elicited a...
. From 1955-56, Keyes wrote for the celebrated EC Comics
EC Comics
Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, including its titles Shock Illustrated and Confessions Illustrated, under both his own name and the pseudonyms Kris Daniels, A.D. Locke and Dominik Georg.
Flowers for Algernon
The short story and subsequent novel, Flowers for Algernon, is written as progress reports of a mentally disabled man, Charlie, who undergoes experimental surgery and briefly becomes a genius before the effects tragically wear off. The story was initially published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science FictionThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
and the expanded novel in 1966. The novel has been adapted several times for other media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, most prominently as the 1968 film Charly
Charly
Charly is a 1968 American film directed by Ralph Nelson. The drama stars Cliff Robertson , Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala, Leon Janney and Dick Van Patten and tells the story of a mentally retarded bakery worker who is the subject of an experiment to increase human intelligence...
, starring Cliff Robertson
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
(who won an Academy Award for Best Actor) and Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
. He also won the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
in 1959 and the Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
in 1966.
Later career
Keyes went on to teach creative writing at Wayne State UniversityWayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
, and in 1966 he became an English and creative writing professor at Ohio University
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...
, in Athens
Athens, Ohio
Athens is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Athens County, Ohio, United States. It is located along the Hocking River in the southeastern part of Ohio. A historic college town, Athens is home to Ohio University and is the principal city of the Athens, Ohio Micropolitan Statistical Area. ...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, where he was honored as a professor emeritus in 2000.
A 1988 edition of his novel Flowers for Algernon states he was a member of the English department at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, in New Haven, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, circa that year. This was an error in a special leatherbound collector's edition.
Keyes' other books include Fifth Sally, The Minds of Billy Milligan, The Touch, Unveiling Claudia, and the memoir Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey.
According to the author's website a new novel by Daniel Keyes, The Asylum Prophecies, was published in 2009 by Dorchester Publishing.
Obtained
- 1960: Hugo AwardHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for the short story Flowers for Algernon (short story) - 1966: Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
for the novel Flowers for Algernon (novel)Flowers for AlgernonFlowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960... - 1986: Kurd Lasswitz AwardKurd-Laßwitz-PreisThe Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis is possibly the best-known science fiction award from Germany. The award is named after the science fiction author Kurd Laßwitz....
for The Minds of Billy Milligan - 1998: Locus AwardLocus AwardThe Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
, 40th best novel before 1990 for Flowers for Algernon (novel)Flowers for AlgernonFlowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960...
Finalist
- 1967: Hugo AwardHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for the novel Flowers for Algernon (novel)Flowers for AlgernonFlowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960... - 1982: Edgar Award for the American Association of Mystery Writers for The Minds of Billy Milligan
- 1987: Edgar Award for the American Association of Mystery Writers for Unveiling Claudia.