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Charles Bernard Nordhoff (February 1, 1887 – April 10, 1947) was an American novelist and traveler, born in England. Nordhoff is perhaps best known for The Bounty Trilogy, three historical novels he wrote with James Norman Hall: Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Men Against the Sea (1934) and Pitcairn's Island (1934). During World War I, he served as a driver in the Ambulance Corps as well as an aviator in both the French Air Force's Lafayette Flying Corps and the United States Army Air Service, reaching the rank of lieutenant. After the war, Nordhoff spent much of his life on the island of Tahiti, where he and Hall wrote a number of successful adventure books, many adapted for film.
Charles Bernard Nordhoff's grandfather was Charles Nordhoff, a journalist and author of non-fiction books. Nordhoff himself showed an early interest in writing. His first published work was an article in an ornithological journal, written in 1902 when he was just fifteen. After attending The Thacher School in Ojai, California, he entered Stanford University at seventeen, but transferred after one year to Harvard.
After graduation in 1909, Nordhoff worked for his father's businesses, first spending two years in Mexico managing a sugar plantation, then four years as an executive of a tile and brick company in Redlands, California. He quit in 1916, signed up with the Ambulance Corps, and traveled to France. There he joined other American expatriates as a pilot in the Lafayette Flying Corps. He finished World War I as a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Service.
The two authors then returned to the United States, sharing a rented house on Martha's Vineyard, until given a commission by Harper's Magazine to write travel articles set in the Oceania. They went to Tahiti in the Society Islands for research and inspiration, and ended up staying, Nordhoff for twenty years, Hall for life. Their second book, Faery Lands of the South Seas, was serialized in Harper's in 1920–21, then published in book form.
Nordhoff married a Tahitian woman, Christianne Vahine Tua Tearae Smidt, with whom he had four daughters and two sons. He wrote novels on his own for ten years, of which The Derelict (1928) was considered his finest solo effort. Nordhoff and Hall continued to jointly write travel and adventure articles for The Atlantic during the 1920s and early 1930s. The New York Times, "A Vivid Tale of Maritime Adventure", Oct 16, 1932, pg BR7 They also co-authored another memoir of World War I, Falcons of France (1929). It was Hall who suggested they work on The Bounty Trilogy: Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Men Against the Sea (1934) and Pitcairn's Island (1934).
Nordhoff, who wrote in the mornings and spent the afternoons fishing, once explained how he and James Hall worked together. They initially drew up charts of all the characters, then doled out the chapters to each other. For their joint works they each made an effort to write in the other's style so as to achieve a reasonably smooth narrative.
After The Bounty Trilogy, Nordhoff and Hall's most successful book was The Hurricane (1936). They continued their partnership writing novels until 1945. Nordhoff produced one more solo book, In Yankee Windjammers (1940), a retelling of the ships, sailors, and way of life about which his grandfather had written.
Charles Bernard Nordhoff died alone at his home in Montecito, California, on April 10, 1947. His body was found the next morning by Tod Ford, who had called on him to work on their book. Newspapers at the time reported the death as an "apparent heart attack". Later sources indicate he had been drinking heavily, was depressed, and may have committed suicide.California Death Index, 1940-1997 He is buried in the Redlands, California, Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery. NNDB
In addition to the Bounty story, five other books by Nordhoff, all of them collaborations with James Norman Hall, were turned into films. (The screenplays were all written by other writers).
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