August William Derleth was born on February 24, 1909 in Sauk City, Wisconsin. He
earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1930.
Derleth was an editor, poet and a prolific writer. He began writing when he was 13
years old and wrote in several genres, including poetry, historical fiction, science
fiction, detective fiction, and biography. He founded a publishing company called
Arkham House in 1939 that exists today. Derleth was the literary editor and wrote
for the Capital Times of Madison from 1941-1960. He married Sandra Winters in 1953;
they had two children and divorced in 1959.
One of Derleth’s best known works is his series, Sac Prairie
Saga. It is an anthology of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and
non-fiction naturalist works written to memorialize life in Wisconsin. After
publication of his first Sac Prairie novel, Still is the Summer Night, in 1937 he was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship in 1938 to continue the saga. His sponsors for the award were
highly respected University of Wisconsin English Professor Helen C. White, Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis, and poet Edgar Lee Masters. Over his lifetime
he authored around 150 books and many more poems and short stories. August Derleth
passed away July 4, 1971 in Sauk City, Wisconsin.
