Eric Mowbray Knight was an English novelist and screenwriter, who is mainly known for his 1940 novel Lassie Come-Home, which introduced the fictional collie Lassie. He took American citizenship in 1942 shortly before his death.
Biography
Born in Menston, West Yorkshire, Knight was the youngest of three sons born to Marion Hilda and Frederic Harrison Knight, both Quakers. His father was a rich diamond merchant who, when Eric was two years old, was killed during the Boer War. His mother then moved to St. Petersburg, Imperial Russia, to work as a governess for the imperial family. The family later settled in the United States in 1912. Knight had a varied career, including service in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry during World War I as a signaller then served as a captain of field artillery in the U. S. Army Reserve until 1926. His two brothers were both killed in World War I serving with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. He did stints as an art student, newspaper reporter and Hollywood screenwriter. He married twice, first on July 28, 1917, to Dorothy Caroline Noyes Hall, with whom he had three daughters and later divorced, and secondly to Jere Brylawski on December 2, 1932.
Writing career
Knight's first novel was Invitation to Life. The second was Song on Your Bugles about the working class in Northern England. As "Richard Hallas", he wrote the hardboiled genre novelYou Play the Black and the Red Comes Up. Knight's This Above All is considered one of the significant novels of the Second World War. He also helped co-author the film, Battle of Britain in the "Why We Fight" Series under the direction of Frank Capra. Knight and his second wife Jere Knight raised collies on their farm in Pleasant Valley, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They resided at Springhouse Farm from 1939 to 1943. His novel Lassie Come-Home appeared in 1940, expanded from a short story published in 1938 in The Saturday Evening Post. The novel was adapted to film by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with Roddy McDowall in the role of Joe Carraclough and canine actor Pal in the role of Lassie. The success of the novel and film generated more films and eventually several television series, cementing Lassie's icon status. The novel remains a favorite, in many reprints. One of Knight's last books was Sam Small Flies Again, republished as The Flying Yorkshireman. On the back of The Flying Yorkshireman, this blurb appeared:
In 1943, at which time he was a major in the United States Army – Special Services where he wrote two of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, Knight was killed in a C-54 air crash in Dutch Guiana in South America.
