Educated at Grinnell College, Hall graduated in 1910 and began working as a social worker in Boston. He attended Harvard University until the outbreak of war in 1914. He joined the British Army, serving with the 9th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. In 1916, he published Kitchener's Mob and High Adventure, being his memoirs of the war. Later that year he joined the Lafayette Flying Corps where he met Charles Nordhoff who would become a life-long friend and literary collaborator. In 1918, Hall was shot down behind enemy lines and spent 6 months in a prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, Hall and Nordhoff moved to Tahiti where they began to write full-time. Hall concentrated on travel books and Nordhoff published some novels. In 1920, their first collaboration, The Lafayette Flying Corps, was published and the following year, Faery Lands of the South Seas appeared. In 1932, they published their greatest co-authored success, Mutiny on the Bounty. The book was made into a film starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable the following year. The second of the Bounty trilogy, Men Against the Sea, chronicling Capt. Bligh's 3500-mile journey after the mutiny, appeared in 1933 and was another success. The last of the trilogy, Pitcairn's Island was published in 1934. Nordhoff and Hall went on to collaborate on six more novels, including the best-seller, Hurricane in 1936 and which was also made into a film. Hall's other works include Mid-Pacific (1928), Mother Goose Land (1930), The Tale of Shipwreck (1934), Dr. Dogbody's Leg (1940), Under a Thatched Roof (1942), Lost Island (1945) and his autobiography, My Island Home (1952 Posthumous). For collaborations, see Various Authors. |
