समाचार

John Jakes, the celebrated author known for his historical North and South trilogy that sold 10 million copies and became three ABC miniseries in the 1980s and ’90s, has died. He was 90.

Jakes died Saturday in Sarasota, Florida, his lawyer and literary agent Frank R. Curtis announced.

Jakes, who during his career wrote more than 80 books, which sold more than 120 million copies worldwide, earned $25 when his first short story was published by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction when he was 18.

He spent 17 years as an advertising copywriter and creative director before he broke through at age 42 with the 1974 publication of The Bastard, the first of eight paperbacks under the umbrella known as The Kent Family Chronicles. Those books, which depicted American history through the lives of a fictional clan, were written to capitalize on the U.S. bicentennial celebrations that peaked in 1976.

In 1975, with the publication of Vols. II,...