Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Jaws | 1974 |
| The Deep | 1976 |
| The Island | 1979 |
| The Girl of the Sea of Cortez | 1982 |
| Q Clearance | 1986 |
| Rummies / Lush | 1989 |
| Beast | 1991 |
| White Shark / Creature | 1994 |
Publication Order of Children’s Books
| Jonathan Visits the White House | 1964 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Time and a Ticket | 1964 |
| Ocean Planet: Writings and Images of the Sea | 1995 |
| Shark Trouble / Shark! | 2002 |
| Shark Life (With: Karen Wojtyla) | 2005 |
About Peter Benchley
Peter Benchley (1940 to 2006) was an American novelist best known for “Jaws” (1974), the story of a great white shark that preys on a Long Island resort town. He co-wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film of the book, and in later life became an advocate for sharks and marine conservation.
Benchley was born in New York City, the son of the author Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of the humorist Robert Benchley, a founder of the Algonquin Round Table. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard, graduating in 1961, then spent a year travelling around the world, a trip he described in his first book, “Time and a Ticket” (1964). He worked as a reporter for The Washington Post and as television editor at Newsweek, and from 1967 to 1969 was a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1971 he was a freelance writer pitching a novel about a man-eating shark, an idea he had carried since reading a 1964 news report of a 4,550-pound great white caught off Long Island. The Doubleday editor Thomas Congdon offered a $1,000 advance for the first 100 pages. “Jaws” was published in 1974 and stayed on the bestseller list for 44 weeks. The film grossed more than $470 million worldwide, and Benchley appears in it briefly as a news reporter on the beach.
“The Deep” (1976), about a honeymooning couple who find sunken treasure off Bermuda, was filmed in 1977, and “The Island” (1979), in which descendants of 17th-century pirates prey on pleasure craft in the Caribbean, followed in 1980 with Michael Caine. The 1980s brought “The Girl of the Sea of Cortez”, the White House comedy “Q Clearance” and “Rummies”, set in a New Mexico rehabilitation clinic. He returned to sea monsters with “Beast” (1991), about a giant squid off Bermuda, and “White Shark” (1994), reissued as “Creature” in 1997. Both became television films.
In his last decade Benchley wrote non-fiction about the sea, including “Shark Trouble” (2002) and “Shark Life” (2005), and was a spokesman for the oceans programme of Environmental Defense. He died of pulmonary fibrosis at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, in February 2006, aged 65. The Peter Benchley Ocean Awards were set up in his memory by his widow, Wendy Benchley, and David Helvarg.
Photo: Alex Gotfryd (back jacket photo, Jaws first edition, Doubleday, 1974), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).