Charles Austin Fosdick
Charles Austin Fosdick was an American author born on September 16, 1842, in Randolph, New York. He grew up in Buffalo and developed a passion for writing during his high school years. Fosdick served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, participating in significant operations such as the Battle of Vicksburg. After the war, he transitioned into a career as a writer, adopting the pen name "Harry Castlemon" for his literary works. His first book, "Frank, the Young Naturalist," was published in 1864, and he went on to write around sixty novels, primarily targeting a juvenile audience. Fosdick’s stories often featured young protagonists and adventurous themes, contributing to the popularity of the juvenile novel series format. Although his early works saw extensive print runs, he faced financial challenges due to his payment arrangements with publishers. After the death of his wife Sarah in 1904, who had been instrumental in his writing process, Fosdick's career came to an end. He passed away on August 22, 1915, in Hamburg, New York.
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Charles Austin Fosdick
Writer
- Born: September 1, 1842
- Birthplace: Randolph, New York
- Died: August 22, 1915
- Place of death: Hamburg, New York
Biography
Charles Austin Fosdick was born September 16, 1842, in Randolph, New York, the son of John Spencer and his first wife, Eunice (née Andrews) Fosdick. Soon after Charles’s birth, his family moved to Buffalo, New York, where his father worked in the public school system. Later Fosdick himself attended Buffalo’s Central High School, where he first realized that he wanted to write.
Fosdick enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1862, and at the outbreak of the Civil War traveled to Cairo, Illinois. There he joined the Mississippi Squadron, whose duties involved guarding Union troops and transports on the Mississippi River and its tributaries and fighting Confederate guerrillas and gunboats. Fosdick eventually became the squadron’s superintendent of coal (which fueled the ships’ boilers) and took part in the battle of Vicksburg. After the end of the war, he took a job as a store clerk in Villa Ridge near Cairo, but continued writing in his spare time. In 1867, Fosdick married Sarah Stoddard, who would also become his valued assistant.
Fosdick’s first work was Frank, the Young Naturalist, published in 1864 under the pseudonym “Harry Castlemon” but begun when Fosdick was still in high school. While that book reflected his childhood experiences hunting and mounting his trophies, Frank on a Gunboat, which appeared the same year, drew upon his Civil War career. Fosdick had submitted the pair to a publisher with the encouragement of Admiral David B. Potter, who had read the latter book in manuscript. Four more novels featuring protagonist Frank Nelson followed in quick succession.
In all, Fosdick wrote some five dozen novels as “Harry Castlemon” in a career spanning almost four decades. Most appeared in series of three or six volumes. Later books, many of them set in the American West or overseas, owed more to Fosdick’s reading and imagination than to his relatively limited personal experience. All featured upright young protagonists eager for adventure—which Fosdick provided in generous measure, with a measure of realism and a minimum of moralizing.
Fosdick’s formulaic approach was extremely popular for a time, helping establish the marketability of the juvenile novel series. His early works went through as many as thirty printings, although sales of his books eventually declined. Even in his heyday, however, Fosdick made relatively little income from his many books, as he negotiated lump-sum payments rather than royalties with his publisher, the Philadelphia firm of Porter and Coates.
Fosdick had moved with his wife Sarah to Westfield, New York—near his birthplace of Randolph—in 1875. Sarah was so important as copyist and proofreader to Fosdick’s success that her death in 1904 spelled the end of his writing career. He himself died August 22, 1915, in Hamburg, New York, where had moved after his wife’s death to live with a son.