James Gould Cozzens, whose literary career has spanned 13 novels and 54 years, was born in Chicago in 1903. After graduation from Kent School in Connecticut he entered Harvard University in 1922, which he left in 1924 to devote his full time to writing. His excellence as a writer has been recognized by critics and the public alike. Six of his books were Book-of-the-Month Club selections. Guard of Honor was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and By Love Possessed - one of the notable best sellers in contemporary fiction - won the Howells Medal of The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1960 (an award which is conferred every five years for that period's most distinguished work of American fiction).