Ed Rice
Edward J. Rice was an American author, publisher, photojournalist and painter, born in Brooklyn, New York to Edward J. Rice, Sr. and Elsie Rice. He was best known as a close friend and biographer of Thomas Merton. Rice wrote more than 20 books, including Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, a best-selling 1990 biography of the famous 19th-century explorer, and was the founder of Jubilee magazine.Life
Rice attended Columbia University, where he became close friends with Merton, Robert Lax, and Robert Giroux. Rice was editor of the Jester humor magazine in his senior year; he graduated in 1940. He stood godfather for both Merton and Lax when each converted to Catholicism; Merton in 1938, and Lax five years later.
Rice chronicled his friendship with Merton in the 1970 book The Man in the Sycamore Tree: The Good Times and Hard Life of Thomas Merton. Also in 1970, he published John Frum He Come, a book documenting the South Pacific cargo cults.
Rice died August 8, 2001 in Sagaponack, New York USA.
