Thornton Burgess Popular Books
Thornton Burgess Biography & Facts
Thornton Waldo Burgess (January 17, 1874 – June 5, 1965) was an American conservationist and author of children's stories. He was sometimes known as the Bedtime Story-Man, after his newspaper column Bedtime Stories. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column. Biography Early life and career Born January 17, 1874 in Sandwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, Burgess was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first Sandwich settlers in 1637. Thornton, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton, Jr. was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They lived in humble circumstances. As a youth, he worked tending cows, picking trailing arbutus (mayflowers) or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy, and trapping muskrats. William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland. This habitat became the setting of many stories in which Burgess refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch. Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, at that time. But he disliked studying business and wanted to be an author. He relocated to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he accepted a job as an editorial assistant at the Phelps Publishing Company. His first stories were written using the pseudonym "W. B. Thornton". Burgess married Nina Osborne in 1905, but she died in childbirth a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone. It is said that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his young son, Thornton III. Burgess remarried in 1911; his wife Fannie had two children by a previous marriage. The couple later bought a home in Hampden, Massachusetts, in 1925 that became Burgess' permanent residence in 1957. His second wife died in August 1950. Burgess returned frequently to Sandwich, which he always claimed as his spiritual home. Many of his childhood experiences and the people he knew there influenced his interest and were the impetus for his concern for wildlife. Old Mother West Wind Burgess used his outdoor observations of nature as plots for his stories. In Burgess' first book, Old Mother West Wind (1910), the reader meets many of the characters found in later books and stories. The characters in the Old Mother West Wind series include Peter Rabbit (known briefly as Peter Cottontail), Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Bobby Raccoon, Little Joe Otter, Grandfather Frog, Billy Mink, Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, Old Mother West Wind, and her Merry Little Breezes. Additional publications For the next 50 years, Burgess steadily wrote books that were published around the world in many languages, including French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. Collaborating with him was his illustrator and friend Harrison Cady who was born and raised in Gardner, Massachusetts, and thereafter of New York and Rockport, Massachusetts. Peter Rabbit was created by British author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, prompting Burgess to note, "I like to think that Miss Potter gave Peter a name known the world over, while I with Mr. Cady's help perhaps made him a character." From 1895 to 1962, Burgess wrote "nearly 900" stories, natural science articles, and poems for magazines, including 201 children's stories for People's Home Journal magazine. For over 16 years from May 1913 through the magazine's demise following its final December 1929 issue, Burgess published a children's story in every issue of People's Home Journal magazine. From 1912 to 1960, without interruption, Burgess wrote his syndicated daily newspaper column (via the George Matthew Adams Service), Bedtime Stories. Radio broadcasts From 1912 to 1960, Burgess also broadcast on the radio. His Radio Nature League radio series began at WBZ (AM), then located in Springfield, in early January 1925. Burgess broadcast the program from the studio at the Hotel Kimball on Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m. Praised by educators and parents, the program had listeners and members in more than 30 states at its peak. Burgess' Radio Nature League disbanded briefly in August 1930, but he continued to give radio talks for WBZ concerning conservation and the humane treatment of animals. Final publications In 1960, Burgess published his last book, Now I Remember, Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist, depicting memories of his early life in Sandwich as well as his career highlights. That same year, Burgess, at the age of 86, had published his 15,000th newspaper column. In 1998, Burgess' granddaughter, Frances B. Meigs, published My Grandfather, Thornton W. Burgess : An Intimate Portrait, detailing her childhood growing up under his wing. Death He died on June 5, 1965, at the age of 91. His son had died suddenly the year before. Awards and accomplishments Burgess was actively involved with conservation efforts. Some of his projects during his lifetime included: Helping to pass laws protecting migrant wildlife. "The Green Meadow Club" for land conservation programs. "The Bedtime Stories Club" for wildlife protection programs. "Happy Jack Squirrel Saving Club" for War Savings Stamps & Bonds. The Radio Nature League broadcast from WBZ in Boston and WBZA in Springfield, Massachusetts. For his efforts, Burgess also received: An Honorary Literary Degree in 1938, from Northeastern University A special gold medal from the Museum of Science in Boston, for "leading children down the path to the wide wonderful world of the outdoors" The Distinguished Service Medal of the Permanent Wildlife Protection Fund. Legacy and influence Wildlife Sanctuaries and Museum After his death, the Massachusetts Audubon Society purchased Burgess' Hampden home and established the Laughing Brook Wildlife Sanctuary at that location; the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Thornton W. Burgess Society operates the Green Briar Nature Center in East Sandwich, Massachusetts. The Society's Thornton W. Burgess Museum in Sandwich closed to the public October 2012. Other A middle school in Hampden, Massachusetts was named after Burgess in honor of his work for conservation. The school opened in 1967 and was closed by the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District in June 2018. In the early 1970s, an anime television adaptation of some of Burgess' works was produced by a Japanese animation studio and was later distributed worldwide. The English language translation was entitled Fables of the Green Forest. John Crowley's novel Little, Big (1980) includes allusions to locations and characters in Burgess' stories. Books References Sources Burgess, Thornton W. (1960). Now I Remember: Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Library of Congress Catalog No. 60-11637 "Disembodied Voice Leads Mu.... Discover the Thornton Burgess popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Thornton Burgess books.
Best Seller Thornton Burgess Books of 2024
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Never Enough
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You Are Kind
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Teased by Fire
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The Next Girl
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Dracula
Bram StokerAn Apple Books Classic edition. Few characters have seized readers’ imaginations quite like Count Dracula of Transylvania, the hero of Bram Stoker’s classic. The 1897 novel put vam...
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Escape, A New Life
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Whiskey Girl
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Salvation
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A Green Kind of Witch
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Masters of Restraint
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan DoyleAn Apple Books Classic You get not one, not two, but 25 gripping mysteries in Arthur Conan Doyle’s first of five collections of Sherlock Holmes short stories. Follow the brilliant ...
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Silenced Girls
Roger Stelljes“ Wow wow wow!  Grips you in a choke hold and  does not let go … Oozes suspense and  bonechilling twists and turns .  Astonishing … One of those...
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The Target
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Law of Attraction
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My Paper Heart
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Little Women
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Noxious
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The Stoic Mind
Addy Osmani & GoLimitlesssDiscover the timeless wisdom of Stoicism in a modern context with "The Stoic Mind," an enlightening visual guide by Addy Osmani and GoLimitlesss. This rich exploration co...
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Meditations
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Death at Hazel House
Betty Rowlands‘Riveting, can't put it down! I love this story… a wonderfully twisted tale of a crime that has more twists than I thought possible... fantastic.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ...
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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Alpha
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel HawthorneAn Apple Books Classic edition. Hester Prynne lives in infamy. After committing adultery and bearing a child with a man whose name she refuses to divulge, the heroine of Nathaniel ...
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Finding Cinderella
Colleen Hoover#1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends With Us writes a free novella about the search for happily ever after. A chance encounter in the dark leads ei...
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Teach Me
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Nothing to Hide
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Once Upon A One-Night Stand
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The Count of Monte Cristo
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The Icing on the Cake
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Dark Psychology and Manipulation
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Tempting the King
Jessa YorkAn escaped Mafia Queen, hiding from her past. A Mafia King who wants to claim her… Giselle They think I'm lostbut I know better. I can never be found. The path I've creat...
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Hard Love
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Just Me
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The Honeymoon Homicide
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Always Yours
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Man In The Water
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All Fired Up
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A Bookshop to Die For
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A Christmas Carol
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The Art of War
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The Holy Bible - King James Version
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Get Lucky
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The Odyssey
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Think and Grow Rich
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Silver Santa
Lacey SilksTrapped together on Christmas, their unintended onenight stand becomes a lifechanging encounter amidst the snow. Laura Young's professional role as a security guard at the Sil...
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Saltwater Cove
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The Four Loves
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The Seduction Series Boxset
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Holy Bible
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsThe 2013 edition of the Holy Bible contains all of the study aids contained in the 1979 edition and includes revisions to the study aids, several new photos, updated maps, and adju...
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The Cupcake Cottage
Jean OramNHL player Maverick Blades could fall in love with anyone... But he had to fall for a woman who falls under the Bro Code as untouchablehis best friend’s beautiful ex, DaisyMae Ray....