Leonard Patrick O'Connor Wibberley (April 9, 1915 – November 22, 1983) was a prolific and versatile Irish-American author, who also wrote under three pen-names. Author of over one hundred published books, he is best known for four satirical novels about an imaginary country, Grand Fenwick, particularly The Mouse That Roared.
Wibberley's adult and juvenile publications cut across the categories of fictional novels, history and biography. He also wrote short stories (several published in The Saturday Evening Post), plays and long verse poems. He published more than fifty juvenile books, for example (with Farrar, Straus and Giroux) the seven-volume Treegate series of historical fiction, which takes place during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and a four-volume life of Thomas Jefferson. As Patrick O'Connor, he wrote the Black Tiger series on auto racing for young adults. Throughout the decades, scenes and senses of the sea play important parts in both Wibberley's fiction and nonfiction. A keen yachtsman, he published several accounts of his ocean racing. He also wrote a mystery series, and is classified as a science fiction writer.
Three of Wibberley's novels have been made into movies: The Mouse That Roared (1959), The Mouse on the Moon (1963), The Hands of Cormac Joyce (1972).
Leonard Wibberley was born in Dublin, Ireland and educated in Ireland and England. He was a son of agronomy professor and author Thomas Wibberley, upon whose death, at the depth of the Great Depression, his son left school to work at various jobs, including busking in the streets with his violin. He began a long career in newspapers as copy boy for the Sunday Dispatch, London, progressed to reporter for the Daily Mirror, London, and then editor (among other jobs) in Trinidad, before going to the United States in 1943, where, in his late twenties, he was both foreign correspondent for the Evening News, London, and cable dispatch editor for the Associated Press in New York City, during World War II.
In 1947 Wibberley moved permanently to California as foreign correspondent, then reporter, for the Los Angeles Times. While working for that newspaper he began his novel-writing career. After leaving the Times he was briefly a reporter for the Turlock Journal, until the appearance of his first novel, The King's Beard (1952), at age thirty-seven. He then settled permanently in Hermosa Beach, California as a full-time author. From that date, he published over 100 books, at a rate of at least one a year and averaging more than three. Many of these were with three publishers: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; William Morrow; Dodd, Mead and Company. With their loss of independence or disappearance, none of these houses kept his titles in print. The best-known of Wibberley's books, The Mouse that Roared, was kept in print for some time by Bantam Books and then Four Walls Eight Windows.
Wibberley also took part in plays, did local radio readings, and had a syndicated column, "The Wibberley Pages". His two marriages (in Trinidad to the later dance writer Olga Maynard, in California to Hazel Holton) produced seven children, including, from the first, philosophy author Patrick Maynard, from the second, film writer Cormac Wibberley. A posthumous book of his last short writings has appeared (see below). Leonard Wibberley donated manuscripts and proofs of many of his works (some in alternative form) to "The Leonard Wibberley Archive" of the library collections of the University of Southern California, where they are available.
Bibliographical notes
All references are to first editions, usually hardcover. Paperback editions were often issued by different presses. For example, Hound of the Sea appeared in 1969 from Ives Washburn, while the first paperback edition was not until 1978, by David McKay, New York. Sometimes changes are made: Beware of the Mouse (Putnam, 1958) was printed in paperback by Borgo Press in 1978, with new illustrations and an Afterword. British editions of some of these books are also sometimes distinct, even differently titled. For example, The Testament of Theophilus: A Novel of Christ and Caesar (Morrow, 1973) appeared in London in 1974 as "The Merchant of Rome" (same subtitle), with Cassell; the British edition of The Mouse that Roared (London: Robert Hale, 1955) bore the author's original title idea, "The Wrath of Grapes". Macdonald (London) is the most usual British publisher of his books.
A number of Leonard Wibberley's books have been translated, some into several languages. For example, Mrs. Searwood's Secret Weapon (Little, Brown, 1954) was translated as Feu l'indien de Madame (Paris: Fasquelle Éditeurs, 1957), with illustrations by Jean Bellus; A Pact with Satan (Dodd, Mead, 1960) was translated as Un Pacto con Satanás (Barcelona: Editorial Molino, 1971).
Some of his works appeared in magazines before or after book publication. The Mouse that Roared was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post for six consecutive weeks, beginning Christmas Day, 1954; "The Time of the Lamb" was a Christmas story in that magazine for 1960. Meeting with a Great Beast (William Morrow, 1971) appeared in Reader's Digest Condensed Books: v. 90 (Summer 1972). Short plays...sometimes adaptations, by Wibberley or others, of his fiction...are listed by Dramatic Publishing, particularly for school productions.
Editions of many of Leonard Wibberley's writings are illustrated, in cover design, title page or content by artists including Enrico Arno, Jean Bellus, Gareth Floyd, Clyde N. Geary, Philip Gough, Fritz Kredel, Siné.
