William March

William March (September 18, 1893 – May 15, 1954) was an American author and a highly decorated US Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was praised by critics and heralded as "the unrecognized genius of our time", without attaining popular appeal until after his death.

March grew up in rural Alabama in a family so poor that he could not finish regular high school. He later studied law, but was unable to afford finishing his studies. In 1917, while working in a Manhattan law office, he volunteered for the US Marines and saw action in World War I, for which he was decorated with some of the highest honors—the French Croix de Guerre and the American Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross. Back stateside, he again worked in a law office and then began a career in business which brought him financial success. He also began writing, first short stories, and in 1933 published a novel, Company K, based on his war experiences, but literary success eluded him. His last novel, The Bad Seed, was published in 1954 and became a bestseller, but March died in that same year, before he could see the novel adapted first for the stage and then for the movies.

His novels are psychological character studies which intertwine his own personal torment—deriving presumably from childhood trauma as well as from his war experiences—with the conflicts spawned by class, family, sexual, and racial matters. March's characters, through no fault of their own, tend to be victims of chance. He writes that freedom can only be obtained by being true to one's nature and humanity.