Major Works
- Hymning and Hawing about America: A Few Symbol- Minded Essays (August 2000)
- The First Men: The Emergence of Man (1978)
- Child Ellen (1975) novel
- The First Horsemen: The Emergence of Man (1974) A Time Life Book
- The States: United They Fell (1967)
Frank Trippett: A Biography
by Tonia Epps (SHS)
Frank Trippett was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on July 1, 1926, and raised in Aberdeen, Mississippi (Cox 206). He married Betty Timberlake on April 6, 1951, shortly before Frank was sent to Germany as a member of the US Occupation Forces. Betty joined him there later that year and returned to the US in June or July 1952 in order to give birth to John. Three other children were born later: Bess in1953, Robert in 1955, and Nan in 1957 or 1958.
Trippett’s college background covers many different fields. He attended Ole Miss, Duke University, Vandercook College of Music, NYSU, and the University of Mississippi..
Trippett had an interesting life. Because he was interested in writing and journalism, in 1948 he became a reporter and wire editor in Meridian, Mississippi. From 1948 to 1954, he also worked as a photographer for a magazine called Free- Lance Star. His first real job was with the Meridian Star. He became an associate editor for Newsweek, a senior editor for Look and a senior writer and essayist for Time magazine during his long career.
Trippett wrote five books . Four are non-fiction and one is fiction. These publications are Child Ellen, a novel; The States: United They Fell; The First Horsemen; and Hymning and Hawing about America: A Few Symbol-Minded Essays . Through the years he received major medals and awards. His most prized award is the American Bar Association Silver Gravel for distinguished writing in 1981. He lived a successful life and died leaving his wife and four children behind on June 18, 1998. He was seventy-one years old when he died in New York of heart failure.
Timeline
- 1926–Born July 1,
- 1948—Reporter and wire editor in Meridian, MS
- 1948-54—Photographer in Fredericksburg, VA Free -Lance Star
- 1951—Married Betty Timberlake
- 1961—Associate Editor on Newsweek Magazine
- 1967—The States: United They Fell published
- 1974—The First Horsemen published
- 1975—Child Ellen, his only novel published
- 1977—Senior writer/essayist for Time Magazine
- 1981—won the American Bar Association Silver Gravel for distinguished writing
- 1998—Died in New York
- 2000—Hymning and hawing about America: A Few Symbol-Minded Essays published
Reviews
A Review of The First Horseman (The Emergence of Man)
by Tonia Epps (SHS)
Tonia Epps, SHS Researcher
The First Horsemen is a nonfiction book based on the relationships between early human and the horse. Although I am not a person who likes to read, I enjoyed the chapters that I read of this book. It is a very interesting book, and I personally learned some new information. Trippett tells about the existence of early tribes and families. The First Horsemen would be a great book for someone who loves history and maybe English. The book has a lot of big vocabulary words, so you need to be a person who knows about certain tribes or horses to understand what point Trippett is making.. I would have liked the book a lot better if it wasn’t about horses and men because I do not care that much for horses. If you are a history person who likes animals, then I recommend this book to you.
Related Websites
- New York Times Obituary for Trippett, 1998
- Book preview of Hymning and Hawing about America with intro by Roger Rosenblatt, 2000. Photo of Trippett on back cover.
- You can find out more about Frank Trippetts’ life
- You can find listings of Frank Trippett’s books
- Essay topic based on paragraph from Trippett’s A Red Light for Scofflaws
- Brief quote from”Watching Out for Loaded Words,“which first appeared in Time in May 1982, Trippett examines words that carry “a load of judgment or bias that plays upon the emotions instead of lighting up the understanding.”
Bibliography
- Cox, James L. “The Mississippi Almanac”. Tallahassee, Florida: Rose Printing Co.201.206 Contemporary Authors. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1969. 242
- Lloyd, James. Frank Trippett : The Lives of Mississippi Authors 1817-1967 Jackson: University Press of Mississippi 1981. 437.
- The Mississippi Writers Page. Online. Internet. 20. March. 2002. Available HTTP://www.olemess.edu/mwp/dir/trippett_frank/index.html
- Times Obituary. Online. Internet. 20. March. 2002. Available HTTP://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/~crosby/timeobit.html