Peter S. Beagle


Peter Soyer Beagle is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially of fantasy fiction. His best-known work is The Last Unicorn which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. During the last 25 years he has won several literary awards, including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. He was named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by SFWA in 2018.

Early life

Beagle was born in the Bronx, in New York City, on April 20, 1939, the son of Simon Beagle and Rebecca Soyer. His father was a history teacher. Further, three of his uncles were noted painters: Moses, Raphael, and Isaac Soyer.
Beagle has said that The Wind in the Willows, a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, originally attracted him to the genre of fantasy.
He is Jewish. He was married to Enid Elaine Nordeen from 1964 to 1980. Together, they raised three children: Kalisa, Dan and step-daughter Victoria. He married the author and visual artist Padma Hejmadi in 1988 and has since entered into a third marriage.

Career

Beagle was raised in The Bronx, New York; he graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1955. He garnered early recognition from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, winning a scholarship to University of Pittsburgh for a poem he submitted as a high school senior. Beagle went on to graduate from the university with a degree in creative writing. Following a year overseas, Beagle held the graduate Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University, where he overlapped with Ken Kesey, Gurney Norman, and Larry McMurtry.
Beagle wrote his first novel, A Fine and Private Place, when he was 19 years old; the novel was followed by a memoir, I See by My Outfit, in 1965.
He wrote an introduction for an American print edition of The Lord of the Rings. He and Chris Conkling co-wrote the screenplay for the 1978 Ralph Bakshi-animated version of The Lord of the Rings. Two decades later he wrote the teleplay for "Sarek", episode 71 of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
With David Carlson as composer Beagle adapted his story "Come, Lady Death" into the libretto for an opera, The Midnight Angel, which premiered at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 1993.
In 2005, Beagle published a coda to The Last Unicorn, a novelette entitled "Two Hearts"; he also began work on a full-novel sequel. Two Hearts won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2006 and the parallel Nebula Award in 2007. It was also nominated as a short fiction finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Beagle also received a special Inkpot Award in 2006 for Outstanding Achievement in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and in 2007 the inaugural WSFA Small Press Award for "El Regalo", published in The Line Between.
He is also a winner of the Jack Trevor Story Cup, also known as the Prix du Goncourt, awarded to an outstanding humorous writer.
IDW Publishing released a six-issue comic book adaptation of The Last Unicorn beginning in April 2010. The collected hardcover edition was released in January 2011, premiering at #2 on the New York Times Hardcover Graphic Novel bestseller list.
Beagle's 2009 collection of short fiction, We Never Talk About My Brother, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award.
In 2013, he collaborated with the musician Phildel on a new track "Dark Water Down", mixing poetry and music. They then appeared together at a gig at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco.

Dispute with Granada media

Beagle's book The Last Unicorn was made into an animated film of the same name in 1982, based on a screenplay written by Beagle himself. In 1979, Beagle had a contract with ITC Entertainment, which entitled Beagle to 5% of the net profits in the animated property, and 5% of the gross revenues from any film-related merchandising. Since 1999 this film has been controlled by a British company, Granada Media International.
From 2003 through 2011, Beagle was involved in a financial dispute with Granada over nonpayment of contractually due profit and merchandising shares. On July 29, 2011, Beagle announced at his Otakon appearance that he and ITV had reached an agreement that was beneficial to all parties, and should please fans of The Last Unicorn. On October 14, 2011, at his New York Comic Con appearance, he announced the first results of the deal.

Dispute with Connor Cochran

Beagle sued his former manager Connor Cochran in 2015 for $52 million. The Alameda County Superior Court judge Michael M. Markman found Cochran liable for financial elder abuse, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty, awarding Beagle $325,000, as well as an additional $7500 for defamation, and an undetermined amount in attorney's fees.
Cochran declared bankruptcy 16 hours before the trial was due to begin. Beagle was unable to collect the money Cochran owed, and the rights to Beagle's work were left in legal limbo. In February 2021, Beagle regained the intellectual property rights; he bought the rights out of the bankruptcy for $600,000, money raised from business partners and friends.

Novels and chapbooks

  • A Fine and Private Place, 1960
  • The Last Unicorn, 1968
  • Lila the Werewolf, 1974
  • The Fantasy Worlds of Peter S. Beagle, 1978
  • The Folk of the Air, 1986
  • The Innkeeper's Song, 1993
  • The Unicorn Sonata, 1996
  • Tamsin, 1999
  • A Dance for Emilia, 2000
  • Your Friendly Neighborhood Magician: Songs and Early Poems, 2006
  • The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version, 2007
  • Strange Roads, 2008
  • Return, 2010
  • Two Hearts, 2011
  • Summerlong, 2016, Tachyon Publications
  • In Calabria, February 2017
  • The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey, November 2018
  • I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons, May 2024
; As editor
  • Peter S. Beagle's Immortal Unicorn, 1995
  • The Secret History of Fantasy, 2010
  • The Urban Fantasy Anthology, 2011
  • The New Voices of Fantasy, 2017
  • The Unicorn Anthology, 2019

    Short fiction

; Collections
  • Giant Bones, 1997 ; reissued in 1999 as The Magician of Karakosk and Other Stories
  • The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances, 1997
  • The Line Between, 2006
  • Strange Roads, 2008
  • We Never Talk About My Brother, 2009, Tachyon Publications
  • Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle, 2010
  • Sleight of Hand, 2011, Tachyon Publications
  • The Overneath, 2017, Tachyon Publications
  • The Way Home, 2023, Penguin Random House

    Non-fiction

  • I See By My Outfit: Cross-Country by Scooter, an Adventure, 1965
  • The California Feeling, 1969
  • American Denim, 1975
  • The Lady and Her Tiger, 1976
  • The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1982
  • In the Presence of the Elephants, 1995
  • The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances, 1997

    Audiobooks

These five audiobooks are unabridged readings by Beagle, except the first, which is abridged. Giant Bones is a collection of short fiction; the others are novels.
  • The Last Unicorn, abridged
  • A Fine and Private Place
  • Giant Bones
  • Tamsin
  • The Last Unicorn, with original music by Jeff Slingluff

    Screenplays

  • The Dove, 1974
  • The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened, 1977
  • The Lord of the Rings, 1978
  • The Last Unicorn, 1982
  • "Sarek" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1990
  • A Whale of a Tale, pilot episode for a TV serial adaptation of The Little Mermaid, 1992
  • Camelot, 1998
  • A Tale of Egypt, 1998

    Discography

  • Peter Beagle Live!, Firebird Arts & Music, 1991, FAM-11008/UPC 0-4720-11008-4-9

    Awards

Source: The Locus Index to SF Awards
These are annual "best of the year" literary awards, with three exceptions.
In 1987, Locus ranked The Last Unicorn number five among the 33 all-time best fantasy novels, based on a poll of subscribers. The 1998 rendition of the poll considered many book series as single entries and ranked The Last Unicorn number 18.