Peter S. Beagle

Peter Soyer Beagle (born April 20, 1939) is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially fantasy fiction. His best-known work is The Last Unicorn (1968), a fantasy novel he wrote in his twenties, which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. 2Early life Beagle was born in Manhattan on April 20, 1939, the son of Rebecca Soyer and Simon Beagle. Three of his uncles were noted painters, Moses, Raphael, and Isaac Soyer. 2Career Beagle was raised in Bronx, New York, and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1955. He garnered early recognition from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, winning a scholarship to University of Pittsburgh for a poem he submitted as a high school senior. He went on to graduate from the university with a degree in creative writing. Following a year overseas, Beagle held the graduate Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University, where he overlapped with Ken Kesey, Gurney Norman, and Larry McMurtry. Beagle wrote his first novel, A Fine and Private Place, when he was only 19 years old, following it with a memoir, I See by My Outfit, in 196