William Campbell Gault

Born in Milwaukee in 1910, William Campbell Gault grew up there and spent much of his early life in the city before moving to California in 1950. During World War II he served in the 166th Infantry, and before writing full time he worked a long list of jobs, including ice man, mailman, aircraft assembler, shoe-factory sole cutter, bus boy, waiter, and hotel manager.

Gault became a prolific American writer of crime and young adult fiction, publishing under his own name as well as the pseudonyms Roney Scott and Will Duke. Archive and library records describe a career that ranged across hardcovers, paperbacks, anthology stories, and pulp magazines, showing how comfortably he moved between mystery, sports, and popular fiction.

He died in 1995 in Santa Barbara, California. His papers, books, correspondence, awards, and photographs are preserved in a special collection at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a fitting record for a writer whose work reached readers across several decades.