Irving Stone - Biography

Biography

In 1923, Stone received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1960s, Stone received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Southern California, where he had previously earned a Masters Degree from the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.

When at home, Stone relied upon the research facilities and expertise made available to him by Esther Euler, head research librarian of the University of California at Los Angeles, to whom he dedicated and thanked, in addition to many others, in several of his works.

Stone enjoyed a long marriage to his wife and editor on many of his works, Jean Stone. The Stones lived primarily in Los Angeles, California. During their lifetime, Stone and his wife funded a foundation to support charitable causes they believed in.

Stone's main source for Lust for Life, as noted in the afterword, were Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. Stone additionally did much of his research "in the field". For example, he spent many years living in Italy while working on The Agony and the Ecstasy. The Italian government lauded Stone with several honorary awards during this period for his cultural achievements highlighting Italian history.

At the early age of seven, Stone’s parents divorced and by the time he was a senior in high school his mother had remarried. Stone legally changed his last name to that of his stepfather’s. Stone said that it was his mother who instilled a passion for reading in him. From then on he believed that education was the only way to succeed in life.

Stone returned to America in the 1930s and resided in New York’s Greenwich village where he wrote the novel which would set his career in motion.