E. L. Doctorow

E. L. Doctorow. . , Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in the Bronx on January 6, 1931 to second-generation Russian-Jewish Americans. His parents named him after Edgar Allen Poe and he took to using his initials as a way to follow in the footsteps of authors he admired who had done the same., An editor, professor and prolific writer, he is best-known for his works of historical fiction that include The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1975), World's Fair (1985), Billy Bathgate (1989), The March (2005) and Homer and Langley (2009). Among his honors are the National Book Award, three National Book Critics Circle awards, two PEN / Faulkner awards, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Humanities Medal., In 1964, E.L. Doctorow and his wife, Helen, moved to 170 Broadview Avenue in New Rochelle, the house that inspired the opening lines of his most famous novel, Ragtime: ,

"In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York. It was a three-story brown shingle with dormers, bay windows and a screened porch."

, New Rochelle serves as a backdrop for much of the novel, which captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn-of-the-century and the First World War. In 1981, it was made into a film starring James Cagney and it opened on Broadway as a musical in 1998., E.L. Doctorow is a great friend of the New Rochelle Public Library where he did research for Ragtime. The Library's local history room is now named for him. In 2008, Ragtime was the focus of a month long "One City, One Book" project with the library and New Rochelle High School that included a play, a concert, a film, an exhibit, several book discussions, and a presentation by Mr. Doctorow.