15 Facts About Conrad Richter

Conrad Michael Richter was an American novelist whose lyrical work is concerned largely with life on the American frontier in various periods.

Conrad Michael Richter was born in 1890 in Tremont, Pennsylvania, near Pottsville, to John Absalom Richter, a Lutheran minister, and Charlotte Esther Richter.

At the age of 19, Conrad Richter started working as an editor of a local weekly newspaper, the Patton, Pennsylvania Courier.

In 1911 Conrad Richter relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, and worked as the private secretary to a wealthy manufacturing family.

Conrad Richter worked subsequently for a small publishing company, initiated a juvenile magazine, and started writing short stories.

In 1913, a young Conrad Richter sent manuscripts to literary editor Frederic Taber Cooper.

O'Brien wrote in his "Introduction" that Conrad Richter's story was the best of all those published in 1914; the editor was explicitly concerned with the development of an "American literature" and considered Conrad Richter as integral to this.

In 1928 Conrad Richter relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the sake of his wife's health.

Conrad Richter persisted with his work, gradually writing and publishing full-length novels.

Conrad Richter set his novels in different periods of American history on its changing frontier.

Conrad Richter returned to the topic of the white child raised in an alien culture in his later novel A Country of Strangers.

Conrad Richter simply tells how he thinks things were for both Indians and whites, in a hard time of violence and danger and change on a raw frontier.

Conrad Richter returned to this theme in his 1960 autobiographical novel, The Waters of Kronos.

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database catalogs five of Conrad Richter's stories, including a very early one, "The Head of His House", from a 1917 anthology, The Grim Thirteen.

Conrad Richter received national and regional literary awards, and several honorary doctorates.