Chitterton House

The son of William Julius Derleth and his wife Rose Louise Volk, he grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin. At the age of 16, he sold his first story to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth wrote all throughout his four years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a B.A. in 1930. During this time he served briefly as editor of Mystic Magazine.In the mid-1930s he organised a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local Board of Education, served as a parole officer, organised a local Men's Club and a Parent-Teacher Association. He also lectured in American Regional Literature at the University of Wisconsin.Derleth was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1938 for his Sac Prairie Saga, a series of novels focused on Wisconsin history.[1] His sponsors included the novelist Sinclair Lewis and the poet Edgar Lee Masters.In 1941 he became literary editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, a post he held until his resignation in 1960.Derleth was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters; he was 44 and she was 18 at the time. When the couple divorced six years later in 1959, Derleth retained custody of their two children, April Rose and Walden William. In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill, dedicated to poems of man and nature.He died on July 4, 1971, and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City.