Thomas Bertram Costain was born on May 8, 1885, and died on October 8, 1965. He was a Canadian-born American journalist who became a best-selling author of books about history when he was 57 years old.

Life

Costain was born in Brantford, Ontario, to John Herbert Costain and Mary Schultz. He attended high school at the Brantford Collegiate Institute. Before graduating, he wrote four novels, one of which was a 70,000-word romance about Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange. These early novels were not accepted by publishers.

His first writing success came in 1902 when the Brantford Courier accepted a mystery story from him, and he became a reporter there, earning five dollars a week. He worked as an editor at the Guelph Daily Mercury from 1908 to 1910. He married Ida Randolph Spragge (1888–1975) in York Township, Ontario, on January 12, 1910. The couple had two children: Molly (Mrs. Howard Haycraft) and Dora (Mrs. Henry Darlington Steinmetz). In 1910, Costain joined the Maclean Publishing Group, where he edited three trade journals. From 1914 to 1917, he was a staff writer for Maclean's magazine, and from 1917 onward, he became its editor. His success there earned him recognition from The Saturday Evening Post in New York City, where he worked as a fiction editor for fourteen years.

In 1920, he became a U.S. citizen. He also worked as an editor for Doubleday Books from 1939 to 1946. From 1934 to 1942, he led the story department at 20th Century Fox’s bureau of literary development.

In 1940, he wrote four short novels but decided not to send them for publication. He then planned to write six books in a series called "The Stepchildren of History," focusing on six lesser-known historical figures. His first book in the series was about the 17th-century pirate John Ward, also known as Jack Ward. In 1942, his first novel, For My Great Folly, was published and became a bestseller, selling over 132,000 copies. A New York Times reviewer said no romantic-adventure lover would be left unsatisfied. In January 1946, he "retired" to focus on writing, producing about 3,000 words each day.

Raised as a Baptist, he was reported in the 1953 Current Biography to attend the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was described as a tall, broad-shouldered man with clear blue eyes, a pink and white complexion, and a slight Canadian accent. He had white hair by the time he began writing novels. He loved animals and avoided harming insects, though he played bridge and did not extend the same care to his opponents. He also enjoyed movies and theater; he met his future wife when she performed the role of Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance.

Costain’s work combined commercial history, such as The White and The Gold (a history of New France up to 1720), and fiction based on historical events. One review noted it was hard to tell where history ended and fictional stories began. His most popular novel was The Black Rose (1945), which focused on Bayan of the Baarin, also known as Bayan of the Hundred Eyes. Costain originally intended the book to be about Bayan and Edward I but became interested in the story of Thomas Becket’s parents: an English knight married to an Eastern woman. The book was selected by the Literary Guild, with a first printing of 650,000 copies, and sold over two million copies in its first year. In 1950, it was adapted into a film starring Orson Welles as Bayan and Tyrone Power as Walter.

His research led him to believe that Richard III was a great monarch unfairly blamed for the murder of the princes in the Tower after his death. He supported his theories with evidence, suggesting Henry VII was the real murderer.

He also wrote four short stories for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in the 1940s under the pseudonym Pat Hand. Three of the stories—“The Showdown,” “The Imponderables,” and “The Ace of Spades”—feature a character named Careful Jones, a gambler who enjoys beating wealthy men and has a Robin Hood-like streak.

Costain died in 1965 at his New York City home from a heart attack at the age of 80. He is buried in the Farringdon Independent Church Cemetery in Brantford.

Awards and honours

He earned a Doctor of Letters (D. Litt) degree from the University of Western Ontario in May 1952. In June 1965, he was given a gold medallion by the Canadian Club of New York. In Brantford, the Thomas B. Costain public elementary school, built in 1953, and the Thomas B. Costain – S.C. Johnson Community Centre, opened in 2002, are named after him. His daughter, Molly Costain Haycraft, became a writer who wrote historical novels.

Influence

George R. R. Martin has mentioned that books by Costain about the Plantagenet dynasty have influenced his book Fire and Blood. This book is part of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Publications

• For My Great Folly (1942)
• Joshua: Leader of a United People – A Realistic Biography (1943) – co-authored with Rogers MacVeagh
• Ride With Me (1944)
• The Black Rose (1945)
• The Moneyman (1947)
• High Towers (1949)
• Son of a Hundred Kings (1950)
• The Silver Chalice (1952)
• The Tontine (1955), illustrated by Herbert Ryman
• Below the Salt (1957)
• The Darkness And The Dawn (1959) (about Attila the Hun)
• The Last Love (1963)

• The Conquerors: The Pageant of England (1949), the author's first historical work, later published again as The Conquering Family
• The White and the Gold (1954)
• The Chord of Steel: The Story of the Invention of the Telephone (1960)
• William the Conqueror, a Landmark book (1959)
• The Plantagenets series (also known as The Pageant of England): The Conquering Family (1949), The Magnificent Century (1951), The Three Edwards (1958), The Last Plantagenets (1962)

• "The Showdown." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 1944. Reprinted in Rogues Gallery, edited by Ellery Queen (Little, Brown, 1945).
• "The Imponderables." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 1944.
• "The Alibi." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 1944.
• "The Ace of Spades." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 1945. This story also appears in Win, Lose or Die (Severn House, 1997) but is incorrectly labeled as "The Showdown."

• Stories to Remember (1956), a collection of novels and short stories selected by Costain and John Beecroft. This is the first of three collections.
• More Stories to Remember (1958), co-authored with John Beecroft
• Thirty Stories (1961), co-authored with John Beecroft
• Come Read with Me (1965), a collection of short stories and novellas

Films from his works

• The Black Rose (1950) starring Tyrone Power.
• Son of a Hundred Kings (1950), a CBC mini-series.
• The Silver Chalice (1954) starring Paul Newman (his film debut).
• The Chord of Steel (1960), a CBC seven-episode mini-series that aired in 1964.