Theodore Pratt

Born in Minneapolis in 1901, he grew up in New Rochelle, New York, studied at Colgate and Columbia, and worked in journalism before fully building his writing career. After marrying Belle Jacqueline Jacques in 1929, he spent several years in Europe as a correspondent for the New York Sun and later returned to the United States.

Florida became the great subject of his fiction. After settling there in 1934, he traveled widely through the state to gather material, and that firsthand research shaped novels set in places like the Keys and the Everglades. He published more than 30 novels, along with short stories, plays, and magazine work, and also wrote some mysteries under the pen name Timothy Brace.

He is especially remembered for The Barefoot Mailman and for a group of Florida novels that earned him the informal reputation of a literary champion of the state. Several of his works were adapted into films, and his papers and manuscripts are preserved at Florida Atlantic University, reflecting his lasting place in Florida literary history.