His Cutlass Island won the Edgar Allan Poe award in 1962 from the Mystery Writers of America as the best mystery written for children.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, March 9, 2006

BY JOHN MONAGHAN
Special to The Journal

PROVIDENCE -- W. Scott Corbett, an author, educator, war correspondent and member of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, died Monday at home after an extended illness. He was 92.

Corbett wrote 81 books in his long career, including 34 that he aimed at children. Among the best known was The Lemonade Trick, one of a 12-volume "'Trick' " series, which mixed fantasy, realism and humor to lure preadolescent boys into reading.

His works also included such adult fare as We Chose Cape Cod and a number of "What Makes it Work" publications, most notably, in 1977, a book on operation of home computers.

Community College of Rhode Island Prof. Charles Sullivan remembered his friend of 40 years as a man of many talents -- and a man without prejudice.

"He was the most non-prejudicial man I have ever, ever met. I never heard a slur about anybody."

Sullivan said that Corbett got along with everyone.

"He never talked down to kids. He just treated everyone equally -- never condescendingly. He just enjoyed being with any sort of person, old or young."

Corbett made one venture into the movies when his book Reluctant Landlord was filmed as Love Nest, released in 1951, featuring June Haver and William Lundigan. It was the only film Jack Paar ever made.

During World War II, Corbett, assigned to the 42nd Infantry Division, was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper in Europe, and was the last editor of Yank, an Army magazine based in Paris. He was one of the first correspondents to enter the Dachau concentration camp as the war wound down; fighting was continuing at one end of the camp as his unit entered the other.

He was interviewed for a History Channel documentary, Hitler's Holocaust, in 2000.

Corbett was born in Kansas City. He received a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1934 and then moved to New York City to work as a freelance writer for such magazines as The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, The Atlantic Monthly and Good Housekeeping.

After 10 years in New York, Corbett and his late wife, Elizabeth, moved to Cape Cod for another 7, then moved to Providence. Corbett taught for some years at Moses Brown School, teaching in the morning and writing in the afternoon. He published an average of two to three books a year between 1960 and 1985. In 1965 he gave up teaching to concentrate on writing.

His Cutlass Island won the Edgar Allan Poe award in 1962 from the Mystery Writers of America as the best mystery written for children. In 1976, The Home Run Trick won the Mark Twain Award, an honor voted by the schoolchildren of Missouri. Much of Corbett's writing was done while aboard ship; he and his wife traveled extensively by freighter.

Corbett was a trustee emeritus of the Trinity Repertory Company and was a member of the Providence Athenaeum.

Funeral services will be private. A memorial service will be held at the Providence Athenaeum at a time to be announced.

With staff reports from G. Wayne Miller