Kyle Onstott, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetKyle Onstott
American writer
Date of Birth: 12-Jan-1887
Place of Birth: Du Quoin, Illinois, United States
Date of Death: 03-Jun-1966
Profession: novelist
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About Kyle Onstott
- Kyle Elihu Onstott (January 12, 1887 – June 3, 1966) was an American novelist, known for his best-selling novel Mandingo (1957), which deals with slavery on an Alabama plantation with the fictional name of Falconhurst in the 1830s.
- The book was made into a 1961 play and film of the same name, which was released in 1975.Onstott was originally a dog breeder and judge in regional dog shows, living in California with his widowed mother in the early 1900s.
- He was a lifelong bachelor, but at age 40, he chose to adopt a 23-year-old college student, Philip, who had lost his own parents.
- Philip eventually married a woman named Vicky and the two remained close to Onstott for the rest of his life.
- Onstott dedicated Mandingo to Philip and Vicky.Onstott began writing Mandingo when he was 65 years old.
- He based some of the events in the novel on "bizarre legends" he heard while growing up: tales of slave breeding and sadistic abuse of slaves.
- Having collaborated with his adopted son on a book about dog breeding, he decided to write a book that would make him rich.
- "Utilizing his [adopted] son's anthropology research on West Africa, he handwrote Mandingo and his son served as editor.
- Denlinger's, a small Virginia publisher, released it and it became a national sensation." He was invited to write an article for True: The Man's Magazine in 1959 about the horrors of slavery.A sequel and a series of other novels followed, mostly written with Lance Horner.
- Outside the usual setting of their work was the 1966 novel Child of the Sun, recounting the scandalous reign of the homosexual Roman emperor Elagabalus.
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