Thomas Alexander Boyd (July 3, 1898 – January 27, 1935) was an American journalist and novelist, born in Defiance, Ohio.

Boyd was raised by his mother's family due to his father's death before he was born. While still in school, he and a friend enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and saw service in France during World War I, where he was gassed in 1918.

Thomas Alexander Boyd

Upon discharge from the occupation forces in 1919, Boyd tried several occupations before becoming a writer for newspapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. He opened a bookstore, Kilmarnock Books, in St. Paul, which became the locus of literary figures, including Sinclair Lewis. He was urged to write and produced the 1923 novel Through the Wheat, based in part on his own war experiences and set partly during the Battle of Belleau Wood. Another war novel, The Dark Cloud, followed in 1924, and a book of short stories, Point of Honor, in 1925. Boyd later remarried and became interested in Socialist causes during the Depression, eventually running as the Communist candidate for governor of Vermont.

Thomas Alexander Boyd

He died suddenly in 1935 of a stroke.

Thomas Alexander Boyd

Selected works

Through the Wheat (1923) novel

The Dark Cloud (1924) novel

Points of Honor (1925) stories

Shadow of the Long Knives (1928) novel

Simon Girty, the White Savage (1928) biography

Mad Anthony Wayne (1929) biography

Light-Horse Harry Lee (1931) biography

Poor John Fitch (1935) biography

In Time of Peace (1935) novel

References

External links

Thomas Boyd Research Notes for Poor John Fitch at Dartmouth College Library

1898 births

1935 deaths

20th-century American novelists

20th-century American male writers

Novelists from Minnesota

American male novelists

People from Defiance, Ohio

United States Marine Corps personnel of World War I

United States Marines