WALTER FARLEY 
June 26, 1915 - October 16, 1989

"If you can write a book that will interest children, 
you can make a living."

~ Walter Farley was born in Syracuse, New York. 

~ A few years later, his family moved to New York City.

~ Young Walter spent much of his free time with an uncle who was a professional horse trainer. He learned about different kinds of competitive horsemanship, including racing, jumping and dressage.

~ In high school, Walter began writing a story about an adventurous boy who befriends and rides an Arabian stallion after having been shipwrecked. 

~ Walter entered every contest that had a horse or a pony as a prize.

~ While a freshman at Columbia University, Walter finished his book. He submitted it to Random House and they published The Black Stallion in 1941.

~ It was an immediate success, and gave Walter enough financial security to quit school and travel the world. 

~ Readers begged for sequels to the book, but they would have to wait. Walter was drafted into the service during WWII, where he worked as a government reporter.  

~ Re-stationed in New York in 1944, Farley met and married a young model Rosemary Lutz.

~ Farley wanted to write full time, but his editor discouraged the pursuit. In 1945, she wrote: "Your desire to devote yourself exclusively to writing after the war is perfectly natural, but I know of only one writer of teenage books who has managed to come pretty close to what you're after..." 

~ Walter didn't listen.

~ In October of 1945 the war time restrictions on publishing were lifted, and The Black Stallion Returns was released. It was another immediate success.

~ Farley and Rosemary had four children: Pam, Alice, Steven and Tim. They raised them on a farm in Pennsylvania and in a beach house in Florida. 

~ The family at various times also included Arabian horses, Standardbreds (racing trotters and pacers), a Great Dane, an Australian terrier and Siamese cats. There was always at least one horse in the backyard. 

~ In 1968 Farley's daughter Pam was killed in a car crash in Europe at the age of 20. Farley memorialized her in The Black Stallion and the Girl. 

~ Farley was active in children's reading programs, making frequent appearances at schools, libraries, and book fairs. 

~ In 1989 his local library in Venice, Florida, designated its children's wing the Walter Farley Literary Landmark. A permanent exhibit of Black Stallion memorabilia is on display there. 

~ Farley went on to write thirty-three enormously popular books about the Black Stallion and other horses which were published in more than twenty countries.

~ Farley died of cancer in Florida shortly before publication of The Young Black Stallion, the twenty-first book in the Black Stallion series, and after the start of production on the television series "Adventures of the Black Stallion."

~ By the time of his death, he had received over 500,000 fan letters. 

~ His son Steven Farley continues the Black Stallion series.