Josiah Greene papers (Ms. 2010.032)

Biographical note

Josiah Greene was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on March 22, 1911, son of Warren Greene (Brown class of 1898), a lawyer who became a farmer and amateur writer when his health forced him to retire from the law and move back to Connecticut. One of three brothers, Greene graduated magna cum laude from Brown in 1933 and went to work as a bookkeeper on a dairy farm. He quit that job a few years later to become a full-time writer. In 1945, while a sergeant in the army, Greene wrote Not in Our Stars, for which he won the $2,500 MacMillan Centenary Award for the best manuscript by a member of the armed forces. He was married to Elizabeth Helen de Courcy (Pembroke class of 1931).