Happy birthday, novelist Frank Yerby

It is the birthday of historical novelist Frank Yerby (1916), who is best remembered for his book The Dahomean (1971), the story of an African prince who is betrayed by his brother and shipped to America as a slave. Yerby was the first African-American bestselling writer and the first African-American to have a book adapted for a Hollywood film. That was The Foxes of Harrow (1946), which became a 1947 film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara. Yerby wrote 33 novels, including Fairoaks (1956) and The Girl from Storyville (1972).