Taylor, Peter, 1917-1994

Peter Hillsman Taylor was a prize-winning American author, known for his stylish novels and short stories of the American South. Born in Tennessee, Taylor's family travelled throughout the South during his youth, and he credits these experiences with inspiring his later writing. He enrolled at Rhodes College, where Allen Tate urged him to transfer to Vanderbilt to study under John Crowe Ransom; he later followed Ransom to Kenyon College, along with Robert Lowell and Randall Jarrell. He garnered early critical success for his short stories and novels, and was considered one of the best writers of his generation by many colleagues. His intricate characters, evocative dialogue, and smooth style helped earn him numerous prestigious awards, culminating in the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994.

Peter Hillsman Taylor (Jan. 8, 1917-Nov. 2, 1994) was born in Trenton, Tennessee, and grew up there and in Nashville, St. Louis and Memphis. He attended Vanderbilt University as an undergraduate in the late 1930s, and he and his close friend Robert Lowell studied with John Crowe Ransom at Kenyon College. Taylor was also a student of Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren, and a lifelong friend of Randall Jarrell. He served in the military in World War II and taught literature and writing at numerous colleges. Taylor is celebrated as one of the greatest writers of short stories in American literature, but also wrote three novels. One of them, A summons to Memphis, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He died in Charlottesville, Virginia.

American author.

Peter Taylor was born on January 8, 1917 in Trenton, Tennessee. Developing a talent for writing early in life, he entered Vanderbilt University in 1936 to study literature and creative writing. His teachers there included the Southern poets John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate. The following year he transferred to Southwestern College in Memphis, but completed his undergraduate work at Kenyon College in Ohio. At Kenyon he began lifelong friendships with fellow students Robert Lowell and Randall Jarrell. In 1940 Taylor entered Louisiana State University as a graduate student, but completed only two semesters.

There he studied with both Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. After serving with the U.S. Army in England during WWII, Taylor joined the faculty of the Woman's College in Greensboro, N.C., teaching intermittently from 1946 to 1952 and 1963 to 1967. In his long career as a teacher-writer, Taylor taught at numerous other colleges, including Indiana State (1948-49), the University of Chicago (1952), Kenyon College (1952-57), Ohio State (1957-63), Harvard University (1964) and the University of Virginia (1967-1983), where he headed the creative writing program.

Best known for his contributions to the New Yorker, Taylor had stories published in numerous periodicals, authored seven collections of short stories, the novella A woman of means, and many experimental one act plays. His work brought him recognition as a Southern writer as well as many awards, including a Pulitzer in 1967 for his novel A summons to Memphis. In 1943 he married Eleanor Ross, a poet and 1940 graduate of the Woman's College. They had two children, Peter Ross and Katherine Baird, a 1978 graduate of UNCG. Taylor died at the age of 77 on Nov. 2, 1994 in Charlottesville, Va.