William Hervey Allen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). His first book, Wampum and Old Gold, was awarded the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Allen is best known for his work Anthony Adverse. He also planned a series of novels about colonial America called The Disinherited. He completed three works in the series: The Forest and the Fort (1943), Bedford Village (1944), and Toward the Morning (1948). The novels tell the story of Salathiel Albine, a frontiersman kidnapped as a boy by Shawnee Indians in the 1750s. All three works were collected and published as the City in the Dawn. His works include Israfel (1926), a biography of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Allen died in Coconut Grove, Florida, aged 60, from a heart attack. Source: Wikipedia