This is how Beagle has made his living, writing books, magazine articles, screenplays - including animated versions of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Last Unicorn” and an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” - along with dozens of short stories. When Beagle writes, the approach is similar, he said. “He took up residence at the far end of the table and held that entire end of the table spellbound for two and a half hours,” Morhaim said. His agent, Howard Morhaim, said the first time they met years ago, Beagle crashed a black-tie dinner Morhaim was hosting for his clients - Beagle was not yet one of them - wearing a black leather jacket. “I know I'm a good story teller,” he said, “which makes my life sound more interesting than it actually is.” “‘Mortals, as you may have noticed, take what they can get.’”īeagle, 83, has a mischievous sense of humor, and when he speaks, it sounds like he’s reading a play on a 1940s radio program, his full, rumbling voice spooling his stories and delivering the punchline just so. “A line I wrote in ‘The Last Unicorn’ when I was in my early twenties,” Beagle said, turned out to be as prescient, for better and worse, as anything he’s written since. Now, after a lengthy court battle in which he accused Cochran of financial elder abuse, Beagle has the rights to his work back, and is making the most of it: A new edition of “The Last Unicorn” came out in July, a sequel called “The Way Home” is scheduled for publication next year, and he has another novel out on submission to his publisher.
The author’s journey has not been as smooth.Īfter a lifetime writing whimsical stories and struggling to cover his bills, Beagle lost control of his intellectual property to his manager, Connor Freff Cochran, who also controlled his finances, and later claimed to friends and family that Beagle had dementia.
Published in 1968, the book remains a strong seller, a classic in the fantasy genre.
Peter Beagle started writing “The Last Unicorn” in a cabin in Cheshire, Mass.
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