Charles Bernard Nordhoff, alone and in collaboration with James Norman Hall, drew from experiences in California, in France during World War I, and in the South Seas as well as from historical events and native myths to produce successful and popular adventure novels. Nordhoff's grandfather Charles also wrote sea stories and travel books, and the younger Charles was born in London where his father was a correspondent for the New York Herald. After his boyhood in California on the family ranch and his graduation from Harvard in 1909, Nordhoff drove an ambulance in France and later joined the French Foreign Legion and the Lafayette Flying Corps, where he met Hall. When the United States entered World War I, Nordhoff transferred to the U.S. Air Service. His letters, written during training and while at the front, were published first in the Atlantic Monthly and then as The Fledgling (1919).

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