Terry, John Skally, 1894-1953

John Skally Terry, born in Rockingham, N.C., in 1894, entered the University of North Carolina in 1914. As an undergraduate, he was active in student publications and became a friend of Thomas Wolfe. While living in New York in the early 1920s, Terry renewed his friendship with Wolfe, joining Wolfe as a member of the English faculty at New York University in 1925. After Wolfe's death in 1938, Terry became a close friend of Wolfe's mother, Julia E. Wolfe, and worked with her on Thomas Wolfe's Letters to His Mother (Scribner's, 1943). Selected by Maxwell Perkins and the Wolfe family to write a biography of Thomas Wolfe, Terry compiled a great deal of material about Wolfe. There was, however, no manuscript of the biography found among Terry's papers after his death in 1953.

From the description of John Skally Terry papers on Thomas Wolfe and other materials, 1917-1953. WorldCat record id: 676809572