In a literary career spanning nearly 50 years, MacKinlay Kantor grew from a pulp fiction writer who simply sought to earn a living to a highly respected novelist who made significant contributions in several genres. While he is perhaps best known for his 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Andersonville, Kantor also wrote influential works in the areas of detective fiction, westerns, and social commentary.

An Iowa native, Kantor began his writing career in the early 1920s, working as a reporter and columnist for an increasingly large series of newspapers in his home state and writing pulp fiction for various inexpensive publications. After several years, Kantor moved to Chicago, where he sought a larger canvas for his writing. Although he struggled initially, his first book, Diversey, which dealt with gang warfare in Chicago, was published in 1928, after which Kantor published a long string of books, articles, and short...