John Jakes
1 universe Last reviewed 2026-11-02
John William Jakes was an American writer born on 31 March 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, and died on 11 March 2023 in Sarasota, Florida, aged 90. He sold his first stories to pulp magazines while still at college in the early 1950s. He graduated from DePauw University in 1953 and earned a master's degree in American literature from Ohio State University. From 1961 he lived in Dayton, Ohio, and worked as an advertising copywriter while writing at night and at weekends, and he became a full-time writer in 1971. He wrote fantasy, science fiction, westerns and historical novels, sometimes under the pen name Jay Scotland. He belonged to the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, and his Brak the Barbarian stories were sword-and-sorcery works. He became widely known for the Kent Family Chronicles in the 1970s and for the North and South trilogy about the American Civil War. In 2013 he was named a Florida Literary Legend.
Universe(s)
- Core Canon books: 4
- Current rank: #1085 in the official ranking
- Weighted average: 3.35
- Award recognitions: None recorded
Books
Aggregate across all universes
- Total Core Canon books across all universes: 4 books
- Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)
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When the Idols Walked (1978) · Brak the Barbarian Core Canon