Robert Myron Coates, novelist, short-story writer, and art critic, is best known for his novel Wisteria Cottage (1948) and for numerous short stories published in the New Yorker from the 1930s through the 1960s. Coates was one of the American expatriates who lived in and around Paris in the 1920s, and his work was influenced by his personal association with such writers as Gertrude Stein, James Thurber, and Malcolm Cowley.

Coates was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the only child of Frederick and Harriet Davidson Coates. He spent most of his childhood and adolescence traveling with his parents as his father, an inventor, tool designer, and mining engineer, searched for new business opportunities. The family lived in such various places as Springfield, Massachusetts; Portland; Seattle; Cincinnati; and New York City. As a result of these frequent moves, Coates formed no permanent friendships and tended to think of himself as...