Peter S. Beagle

Peter Soyer Beagle (born April 20, 1939) is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially of fantasy fiction.

Beagle was born in Manhattan on April 20, 1939, the son of Simon Beagle and Rebecca Soyer, daughter of Abraham Shoar, a Hebrew scholar, writer and teacher.

Three of his uncles were noted painters: Moses, Raphael, and Isaac Soyer.

Beagle has said that The Wind in the Willows, a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, originally attracted him to the genre of fantasy.

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 19 years old, following it with a memoir, I See by My Outfit, in 1965.

He wrote an introduction for an American print edition of The Lord of the Rings.

His best-known work is The Last Unicorn (1968) which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987.

He and Chris Conkling co-wrote the screenplay for the 1978 Ralph Bakshi-animated version of The Lord of the Rings.

Two decades later he wrote the teleplay for "Sarek", episode 71 of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In 1979, Beagle had a contract with ITC Entertainment, which entitled Beagle to 5% of the net profits in the animated property, and 5% of the gross revenues from any film-related merchandising.

Beagle's book The Last Unicorn was made into an animated film of the same name in 1982, based on a screenplay written by Beagle himself.

With David Carlson as composer Beagle adapted his story "Come, Lady Death" into the libretto for an opera, The Midnight Angel, which premiered at the Opera Theater of St. Louis in 1993.

Since 1999 this film has been controlled by a British company, Granada Media International (a subsidiary of ITV plc).

From 2003 through 2011, Beagle was involved in a financial dispute with Granada over nonpayment of contractually due profit and merchandising shares.

In 2005, Beagle published a coda to The Last Unicorn, a novelette entitled Two Hearts, and began work on a full-novel sequel.

Two Hearts won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2006 and the parallel Nebula Award in 2007.

It was also nominated as a short fiction finalist for the World Fantasy Award.

Beagle also received a special Inkpot Award in 2006 for Outstanding Achievement in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and in 2007 the inaugural WSFA Small Press Award for "El Regalo", published in The Line Between (Tachyon Publications).

He is also a winner of the Jack Trevor Story Cup, also known as the Prix du Goncourt, awarded to an outstanding humorous writer.

Beagle's 2009 collection of short fiction, We Never Talk About My Brother, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award.

IDW Publishing released a six-issue comic book adaptation of The Last Unicorn beginning in April 2010.

During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards, including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011.

The collected hardcover edition was released in January 2011, premiering at #2 on the New York Times Hardcover Graphic Novel bestseller list.

On July 29, 2011, Beagle announced at his Otakon appearance that he and ITV had reached an agreement that was beneficial to all parties, and should please fans of The Last Unicorn.

On October 14, 2011, at his New York Comic Con appearance, he announced the first results of the deal.

In 2013, he collaborated with the musician Phildel on a new track "Dark Water Down", mixing poetry and music.

They then appeared together at a gig at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco.

Beagle sued his former manager Connor Cochran in 2015 for $52 million.

The Alameda County Superior Court judge Michael M. Markman found Cochran liable for financial elder abuse, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty, awarding Beagle $325,000, as well as an additional $7500 for defamation, and an undetermined amount in attorney's fees.

Cochran declared bankruptcy sixteen hours before the trial was due to begin.

Beagle was unable to collect the money Cochran owed, and the rights to Beagle's work were left in legal limbo.

In February 2021, Beagle regained the intellectual property rights.

These five audiobooks are unabridged readings by Beagle, except the first, which is abridged.

Giant Bones is a collection of short fiction; the others are novels.

Source: The Locus Index to SF Awards

He was named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by SFWA in 2018.