Earl Hamner, a Virginia native, is one of America's best-loved storytellers, but he has never been the subject of a full-length study. EARL HAMNER: FROM WALTON'S MOUNTAIN TO TOMORROW fills that gap.

Hamner once said, "Even though families are said to be shattered these days, and God is said to be dead, if people can revisit the scenes and places where these values did exist, possibly they can come to believe in them again, or...to adapt some kind of belief in God, or faith in the family unit, or just getting home again." This vision of what makes for a whole life permeates all of Hamner's work. It is present in the novel SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN, upon which THE WALTONS is loosely based, and in his screenplays, such as the work he is perhaps most proud of, CHARLOTTE'S WEB. It is even present in such unlikely places as the eight scripts he contributed to the classic television series THE TWILIGHT ZONE and in the tales of cold-blooded betrayal and boundless ambition depicted on FALCON CREST.

In EARL HAMNER: FROM WALTON'S MOUNTAIN TO TOMORROW, readers will discover the integrated nature of his career. A pervasive theme runs throughout Hamner's work, that of a man forever taking a backward glance to his roots for direction in the way of what makes life worthwhile. Upon learning that this book was being written, Hamner told one of his friends, "I can't imagine anyone wanting to read a book about me, much less write one about me." Readers of this book will find Hamner's doubts indeed misplaced and will discover a delightful individual who has enjoyed a long, accomplished career as a storyteller, laboring for a worthy goal: that posterity may know of an age and a people whose legacy has not, through silence, been permitted to pass away as in a dream.