Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Richard Bach was born in Oak Park on June 23, 1936. The American Richard Bach is the great-great…-great-grand…-grandson of the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach; his parents were Roland and Ruefi (Shaw) Bach. From 1955 for four years, Richard Bach studied at Long Beach State College (now California State University, Long Beach).

Richard’s true passion has always been airplanes: he served in the air force and after the army worked as a pilot stuntman and aviation instructor.

After getting into journalism, he published many articles, essays, and stories devoted to general and specialized aviation problems. His first books about pilots, airplanes, and the sky—“Stranger on Earth” (1963), “Biplane” (1966), “Nothing by Chance” (1969)—spoke about those themes. These books weren’t noticed by a broad readership, just like the publication of Bach’s next work in 1970—the parable “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” But the republication of this novella in 1972 made its author famous not only in the United States, but in many countries around the world.