Charles Neider, 1915 - 2001
Charles Neider was born in 1915 in Odessa, Russia. At the age of 5, he and his family moved to the United States, settling in Richmond, Virginia. Neider later moved to New York and attended City College.
In 1959, his most famous book was published entitled, "The Autobiography of Mark Twain," which was later named as one of the 100 Best Nonfiction books written in English during the 20th Century by the Modern Library. He has also edited and annotated around a dozen anthologies of Mark Twain tales, and edited the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Washington Irving and Leo Tolstoy.
Neider considered himself to be a naturalist as well as a writer. Between '69 and '77, he participated in three expeditions to Antarctica funded by the National Science Foundation and the United States Navy. He wrote about these trips in "Edge of the World: Ross Island, Antarctica" and "Beyond Cape Horn: Travels in the Antarctic." He also wrote of his own harrowing adventure when the helicopter he was flying in crashed on Mount Erebus in 1971. He wrote fiction about Billy the Kid, and the last book he wrote was a semi-autobiographical book about his struggle with prostate cancer.
Charles Neider died July 11, 2001 at the age of 86.