Jonathan Bayliss

Jonathan Bayliss (1926-2009) studied at Harvard, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and finished his A.B. at the University of California at Berkeley. Bayliss's GLOUCESTERMAN series was created over a period of about fifty years. While writing the four novels and two plays, Bayliss earned his livelihood in positions involved with sales analysis, systems, and executive management, beginning in 1950 at a Berkeley bookstore. In the 1960s, as controller at Gorton's of Gloucester, the frozen-fish processor in Gloucester, Massachusetts, he was a pioneer in developing integrated applications for the IBM System 360. After leaving Gorton's in 1972, Bayliss devoted five years to full-time writing. Later he worked for the City of Gloucester as administrative manager for the mayor and as city treasurer. In 1985 he resumed full-time work on his fiction tetralogy. Bayliss was putting the finishing touches on his final novel, Gloucestermas, when he died in 2009 at the age of 82. The GLOUCESTERMAN novels are headed by Prologos and include the trilogy Gloucesterbook, Gloucestertide, and Gloucestermas, which may be read in any order. Bayliss's two plays, The Tower of Gilgamesh and The Acts of Gilgamesh, interspersed within the novels, have now been published separately as Gilgamesh Plays. Democratic Oak Tree is a collection of Bayliss's political essays and correspondence.