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Morris L. West (1916–1999)

Author of The Shoes of the Fisherman

47+ Works 6,828 Members 167 Reviews 7 Favorited

About the Author

Morris West was born in 1916 in St Kilda, Melbourne. At the age of thirteen, he left home to study with the Christian Brothers Order in Sydney, but left in 1939 after 12 years, before taking his final vows. He was fluent in Italian and French, and taught modern languages and mathematics in New show more South Wales and Tasmania in his twenties. He spent four years code-breaking as a cipher officer in the AIF, and then for a decade he concentrated on producing and writing radio plays. West's first novel was published in 1945 and he began writing full time in the 1950s. He went to Italy were he went undercover with Father Mario Borelli, who was working with street urchins, and wrote The Children of the Sun, published in 1957. In 1959, following six months as Vatican correspondent for The Daily Mail, he published The Devil's Advocate, which won the William Heinemann Award of the Royal Society, the National Brotherhood Award of the National Council of Christians and Jews as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Award. Shoes of a Fisherman, the first of The Papal Series, which included The Clowns of God, Lazarus and Eminence, won the Best-Sellers Paperback of the Year Award in 1965. West helped to found the Australian Society of Authors, was chairman of the National Book Council, chairman of the National Library of Australia and a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He was made member of the order of Australia (MBE) in 1985 and officer of the order of Australia (AO) in 1997. Apart from writing novels, West also wrote screenplays, radio dramas, plays and was also an artist. Translated into twenty-seven languages, his works have sold more that sixty million copies. He also wrote an account on his spiritual journey, A View From the Ridge, published at the end of 1996. Morris West died while working at his desk on 9th October 1999. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Morris L. West

The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) 1,027 copies
The Devil's Advocate (1959) 698 copies
The Clowns of God (1981) 553 copies
Lazarus (1999) 366 copies
The Salamander (1973) 344 copies
The Navigator (1976) 332 copies
Harlequin (1974) 322 copies
The Tower of Babel (1968) 302 copies
Proteus (1979) 277 copies
The Ambassador (1965) 248 copies
The World Is Made of Glass (1983) 241 copies
Summer of the Red Wolf (1971) 239 copies
Masterclass (1988) 227 copies
Eminence (1998) 191 copies
Cassidy (1986) 183 copies
Daughter of Silence (1961) 176 copies
The Lovers (1993) 133 copies
The Second Victory (1958) 111 copies
The Big Story (1957) 97 copies
Vanishing Point (1996) 94 copies
The Ringmaster (1992) 93 copies
Children of the Sun (1957) 80 copies
The Last Confession (2000) 67 copies
The Naked Country (1960) 64 copies
The Vatican Trilogy (1993) 55 copies
Gallows on the Sand (1956) 53 copies
Kundu (1956) 49 copies
The Concubine (1958) 38 copies
The Heretic (1969) 26 copies
Images and Inscriptions (1997) — Author — 5 copies
West Morris 1 copy

Associated Works

Tales of the Dead (1981) — Contributor — 64 copies
Reader's Digest Condensed Books 1963 v03 (1963) — Author — 20 copies
The Devil's Advocate: A Drama in Three Acts (1961) — Novel — 12 copies
Voodoo: A Chrestomathy of Necromancy (1980) — Contributor — 2 copies
Sanfter Schrecken (1997) — Contributor — 2 copies

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Statistics

Works
47
Also by
35
Members
6,828
Popularity
#3,578
Rating
½ 3.6
Reviews
167
ISBNs
874
Languages
15
Favorited
7

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