Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune (1872-1942) was an American author best known for his popular dog stories, particularly his celebrated work, "Lad: A Dog" (1919). Born in Newark, New Jersey, Terhune was the youngest of six children in a family with a rich literary and religious background; his mother was a novelist and his father a clergyman. He graduated from Columbia University and initially worked as a journalist for the New York Evening World, where he honed his writing skills. Terhune's love for dogs, particularly collies, greatly influenced his writing, leading him to breed and write about them from his home, Sunnybank, in Cazenovia, New York. Despite struggling with financial difficulties and critical reception during his career, his stories resonated with the public, especially children, making him a beloved figure in American literature. Terhune faced significant personal challenges, including the loss of his first wife shortly after the birth of their daughter and health issues later in life, but he continued to write until his death. Although many of his works have fallen out of print, Terhune's legacy remains in his ability to capture the bond between humans and dogs.
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Albert Payson Terhune
Author
- Born: December 21, 1872
- Birthplace: Newark, New Jersey
- Died: February 18, 1942
- Place of death: near Pompton Lakes, New Jersey
Biography
Albert Payson Terhune was born on December 21, 1872, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of six children. His parents were Edward Payson Terhune, a clergyman, and Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune, a novelist who wrote under the name Marion Harland. The family moved frequently but spent summers at a sprawling house called Sunnybank on the shores of Lake Pompton. When Terhune was a toddler, the family spent 1876 to 1878 in Italy while his mother recovered from a lung ailment. One of Terhune’s earliest memories was of himself when he was about five years old, cruelly swinging a puppy around by its ears. The severity of his father’s punishment and the sounds of he dog’s pain would stay with him throughout his life.
Terhune was an imaginative child and an avid reader. With his father he enjoyed fishing and hunting, and his mother shared her love of writing. When it was time for college he chose Columbia University because it was near home and, with his father frequently away, his mother needed his assistance. After he graduated in 1893, he took a tour of Europe and the Middle East with his mother as a graduation present, and then went to work in 1894 for the New York Evening World, a position he held until 1916. In 1898, Terhune eloped with Lorraine Bryson, and the couple settled in Cazenovia, New York. Ten months later, their daughter Lorraine Virginia was born, followed four days later by the death of her mother.
Terhune married Anice Stockton in 1901, and he began earning extra money as a freelance writer and translator. Always in debt, he established a schedule of writing five hours a night after work, five days a week, to improve his writing and his chances of publishing it. Eventually he was able to sell enough of his fiction to make a living. In 1912, he purchased Sunnybank from his widowed mother, and he and Alice began to raise collies there. When one of the dogs, Lad, developed a mutual affection for Terhune’s magazine publisher, Terhune wrote a story about the dog. Although he had been trying unsuccessfully for ten years to sell dog stories, his publisher promised to publish this one, and it led to several more. Terhune quit the Evening World in 1916, and for the rest of his life he lived at Sunnybrook and wrote fiction, mostly for popular magazines.
Terhune’s most important work was Lad: A Dog (1919), a collection of previously published stories about his own dog. After it became an international sensation, he wrote frequently about dogs in the next decades, giving up his dream to write serious literary fiction. Terhune was also a licensed American Kennel Club judge of collies. He suffered a serious car accident in 1929, and he was diagnosed with cancer in 1938. He died on February 18, 1942, at Sunnybank. Terhune’s fiction, while never revered by critics, was well loved by the general public, especially by children. Since most of his novels grew out of collected short stories, they tend to be too episodic for twenty-first century tastes and most have gone out of print.