Howard Pease

Howard Pease (September 6, 1894–April 14, 1974) was an American writer of adventure stories from Stockton, California. Most of his stories revolved around a young protagonist, Joseph Todhunter (“Tod”) Moran, who shipped out on tramp freighters during the interwar years.

Biography.

Pease was born in Stockton on September 6, 1894. For most of his life, he resided in the San Francisco, California, area, except for those times when he shipped out as a member of the crew on a freighter, searching for new material.

Pease decided to become a writer while in the sixth grade, and he wrote his first short story in 1907 during that school year. He attended Stanford University in Stanford, California, interrupted his studies for two years of United States Army service in Europe, then returned to graduate. During two summers, he shipped out as a wiper in the engine room of a cargo ship.

Pease’s first published work was a short story that appeared in the June 1921 edition of the children’s magazine The American Boy. He wrote his first novel, The Gypsy Caravan, in the early 1920s, although it was not published until 1930 when it became his fourth published novel. His first published novel was The Tattooed Man, based on two of his voyages and on a walking trip he took along the south coast of France from Marseilles to Italy; it appeared in 1926, and introduced Tod Moran, a young merchant mariner who is the protagonist in most of Pease’s novels, working his way up from wiper to first mate as the novels – sometimes referred to as “the Tod Moran mysteries” – progress. Recurring characters in the Tod Moran novels are his friends in the “black gang” (slang for the engine room crew), Toppy, a Cockney deckhand, and Sven, a Swede, as well as Captain Jarvis, master of the freighter Araby and a father figure to Tod.

By the late 1930s, Pease had written The Gypsy Caravan, Secret Cargo, and eight Tod Moran novels. He wanted to branch out beyond the creative constraints imposed by the Tod Moran series, but his editor at Doubleday insisted that he continue to write Tod Moran books exclusively. In response, he wrote Captain Binnacle and The Long Wharf, leading her to relent and allow him to write more on topics other than the adventures of Tod Moran. However, he continued the Tod Moran series as well; indeed, the last of his 22 published novels, Mystery on Telegraph Hill, was a Tod Moran mystery published in 1961.

In addition to writing children’s stories, Pease taught high school English and in the mid-1940s was the principal at Los Altos Elementary School. He also contributed to journals and reviewed books for The New York Times.

Pease died in San Rafael, California, on April 14, 1974. He is buried at Stockton Rural Cemetery in Stockton.