A short life of the author
Mario Puzo (1920–1999) was born on 15 October 1920 in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, to Italian immigrant parents from Campania. He served in the Army Air Forces in World War II and studied at the New School and Columbia.
Life and Career
Puzo’s early novels — The Dark Arena (1955) and The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965) — were well-reviewed but commercially unsuccessful. He was deeply in debt when he wrote The Godfather (1969), which he later admitted was written deliberately as a commercial book.
The Godfather — about the Corleone crime family and the rise of Michael Corleone from reluctant outsider to ruthless don — became one of the bestselling novels of the twentieth century. It spent sixty-seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Puzo co-wrote the screenplay with Francis Ford Coppola; they won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for both The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974).
Major Works and Themes
Puzo wrote about power, family, loyalty, and the American immigrant experience. The Godfather is at once a crime novel and a novel about capitalism, family, and the corruption of the American Dream.
Key Works
- The Godfather (1969)
- The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965)
Collecting Puzo
The Godfather first edition (Putnam, 1969) in fine condition with dust jacket brings $1,000–$3,000. The Fortunate Pilgrim (Atheneum, 1965) — his best novel by most critical accounts — brings $200–$500. Puzo died in 1999.