James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Biography

James Lincoln Collier (born 1928) is a jazz musician and writer of children's and young adult fiction. Christopher Collier (1930-2022) was a professional historian at the University of Connecticut specializing in colonial and Revolutionary-era Connecticut. The collaboration was unusual and productive: James wrote the narrative, Christopher supplied the historical research and vetting. Christopher's scholarly work on Connecticut Loyalism directly shaped the novel's refusal to romanticize the Revolution. The book was published in 1974, a year before the Bicentennial — a deliberate intervention into what the Colliers saw as uncritical patriotic celebration.

James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier at a glance