Walter Alden Dyer (AC 1900) Papers

Walter Dyer, a prolific author, was a member of the Amherst College Class of 1900. From 1900 to 1901 he was on the staff of The Springfield Union and The Criterion (New York), and from 1901 to 1905, he was on the editorial staff of Clifford and Lawton, publishers of trade journals in New York. From 1905 to 1914 he worked on the staff of the magazine Country Life in America, serving as editor from 1907 to 1914. From 1914 until his death in 1943, he was an independent author, publishing many books and magazine articles on antiques, animals (particularly dogs), country life, and short fiction. He was editor of The Amherst Graduates' Quarterly for more than ten years (from 1932 to 1943) and became the director of Amherst College Press in 1933. In 1903 Dyer married Ethelind Thorp Childs, who died in 1904. In 1907 he married her sister Muriel Worthington Childs. Dyer died in Pelham, Mass. on June 20, 1943.

Dyer was the author of the following books:

1910

The Lure of the Antique

1911

The Richer Life

1915

Pierrot, Dog of Belgium

1915

Early American Craftsmen

1916

Gulliver the Great and Other Dog Stories

1916

The Humble Annals of a Back Yard

1917

Creators of Decorative Styles

1917

The Five Babbits of Bonny-Acres

1918

The Dogs of Boytown

1918

Handbook of Furniture Styles

1919

Ben, the Battle Horse

1919

With the Help of God and a Few Marines (co-author)

1920

Sons of Liberty

1924

Many Dogs There Be

1926

All Around Robin Hood's Barn

1927

The Breakwater

1927

Country Cousins

1928

Chronicles of a Country Man

1928

The Rocking Chair (co-author)

1931

Sprigs of Hemlock