Listing of "South Carolina from A to Z" Includes Novelist John Jakes '53

December 26, 2017

A South Carolina Public Radio rundown of that state "From A to Z" notes, "'J' is for Jakes, John [b. 1932]. Novelist."

It continues, "Born in Illinois, Jakes is a nationally known best-selling novelist and historian. For several decades, he maintained his primary residence on Hilton Head Island. After graduating from DePauw University, he spent a number of years working for pharmaceutical and advertising companies. Then, in 1973 he published the first of eight volumes of the Kent Family Chronicles -- a series that depicted the American Revolution through the eyes of one fictional family. Between 1982 and 1987 he produced North and South, a trilogy on the Civil War that featured the fictional South Carolina family, the Horrys. More than 60 million copies of these eleven novels are currently in print. In 2002, John Jakes published Charleston, his first full-length historical novel based on the history of what was then his adopted state."

Access the item, which is accompanied by an audio clip, here.

An English major as an undergraduate and a former member of the University's Board of Trustees, John Jakes is a 1953 graduate of DePauw. He has returned to his alma mater as a visiting professor of English and he delivered the commencement address to DePauw's Class of 1995.

"DePauw's goal, it seems to me, is to provide the best possible four year liberal arts education, but also an awareness of how much more there is to learn," he noted in the speech. "DePauw doesn't turn out narrowly trained technical specialists like so many Pentium chips, one after another."

Video of the speech is embedded below.