Quick Facts
AriesBiography
Robert Shaplen (March 22, 1917—May 15, 1988) was an American journalist and author.
Early life and education
Shaplen was born on March 22, 1917, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
After completing his high school education in Brooklyn, he received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin (1937) and M.S. from the School of Journalism at Columbia University (1938). He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1947-48).
His father was also a journalist who covered the Russian Revolution for the New York Herald Tribune.
Career
Following his education, Shaplen worked as a reporter for the Herald Tribune until 1943. After working as a correspondent for Newsweek, he was chief of Nerweek's Far East bureau, covering China, and the Philippines, from 1945 to 1947. He also spent a month in Japan at the start of the occupation. During the war be did forty broadcasts for NBC from Japan, the Philippines, and China.
He was also a regular contributor to The New Yorker and other magazines.
In 1949, Shaplen published A Corner of the World, a book of short stories set in the Orient. It was followed by Free Love and Heavenly Sinners (1954), a book covering the scandals of congregationalist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher.
Death
Shaplen died on May 15, 1988, in New York City, New York, at age 71.