Edwin Palmer Hoyt


Edwin Palmer Hoyt Jr. was an American writer and historian who specialized in military history. Until 1958, Hoyt worked in news media, after which he produced non-fiction works.

Early life

He was born in Portland, Oregon to the publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt and his wife, the former Cecile DeVore. A younger brother, Charles Richard, was born in 1928. Hoyt attended the University of Oregon from 1940 to 1943.

Career

In 1943, Hoyt's father, then the editor and publisher of The Oregonian, was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the director of the Domestic Branch, Office of War Information. The younger Hoyt served with the Office of War Information during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. In 1945 and 1946, he served as a foreign correspondent for The Denver Post and the United Press, reporting from locations in China, Thailand, Burma, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and Korea.
Edwin Hoyt subsequently worked as an ABC broadcaster, covering the 1948 revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1949 to 1951, he was the editor of the editorial page at The Denver Post. He was the editor and publisher of the Colorado Springs Free Press from 1951 to 1955, and an associate editor of Collier's Weekly in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1957 he was a television producer and writer-director at CBS, and in 1958 he was an assistant publisher of American Heritage magazine in New York.
Starting in 1958, Hoyt became a full-time writer, and for a few years he served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hawaii. In the 40 years since his first publication in 1960, he produced nearly 200 published works. While Hoyt wrote about 20 novels, the vast majority of his works are biographies and other forms of non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on World War II military history.
Hoyt died in Tokyo, Japan on July 29, 2005, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by his wife Hiroko, of Tokyo, and three children, Diana, Helga, and Christopher, all residing in the U.S.

Selected works

Jumbos and Jackasses: A Popular History of Political Wars. New York: Doubleday One Penny Black: The Story of Stamp Collecting. Duell, Sloan & Pearce The House of Morgan. Dodd, Mead & Company The Last Cruise of the Emden: The Amazing True WWI Story of a German-Light Cruiser and Her Courageous Crew. London: Andre Deutsch