Herman Wouk (Author of The Winds of War)

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Herman Wouk

Born

in New York, New York, The United States

May 27, 1915

Died

May 17, 2019

Website

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Religion & Spirituality

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Herman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.

Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell Herman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.

Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.

Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.

While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.

He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."

In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.

Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday. ...more

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Herman Wouk鈥檚 books

Average rating: 4.3 · 154,741 ratings · 7,485 reviews · 150 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1) 4.38 avg rating — 58,491 ratings — published 1971 — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	War and Remembrance (The Henry Family, #2) 4.43 avg rating — 38,553 ratings — published 1978 — 117 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Caine Mutiny 4.29 avg rating — 26,206 ratings — published 1951 — 254 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Marjorie Morningstar 3.98 avg rating — 9,081 ratings — published 1955 — 103 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hope (The Hope and the Glory, #1) 4.21 avg rating — 4,635 ratings — published 1993 — 58 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Don't Stop the Carnival 3.93 avg rating — 3,812 ratings — published 1965 — 67 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Glory (The Hope and the Glory, #2) 4.34 avg rating — 2,820 ratings — published 1994 — 48 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Youngblood Hawke 4.22 avg rating — 2,288 ratings — published 1962 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Inside, Outside 4.05 avg rating — 1,620 ratings — published 1985 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	City Boy 4.10 avg rating — 1,359 ratings — published 1948 — 57 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Herman Wouk…

Series by Herman Wouk

The Henry Family (2 books)
by

Herman Wouk

4.40 avg rating — 97,043 ratings

The Hope and the Glory (2 books)
by

Herman Wouk

4.26 avg rating — 7,455 ratings

Quotes by Herman Wouk (?)

“When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”
― Herman Wouk

tags: danger, humor

1193 likes

“This life is slow suicide, unless you read.”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

68 likes

“Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.”
― Herman Wouk, The Winds of War

64 likes

See all Herman Wouk's quotes »

Polls

April 2025 New School Poll

1984 by George Orwell (1949) 328 pages

68 votes, 30.8%

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (1951) 186 pages

32 votes, 14.5%

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (1943) 192 pages

29 votes, 13.1%

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (1970) 106 pages,

24 votes, 10.9%

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (1984) 333 pages.

22 votes, 10.0%

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian (1969) 384 pages

21 votes, 9.5%

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (1951) 537 pages

13 votes, 5.9%

Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1947) 347 pages

12 votes, 5.4%

221 total votes

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Herman Wouk

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