Vincent Sheean
American journalist and novelist (1899–1975)
James Vincent Sheean (December 5, 1899, Pana, Illinois – March 16, 1975, Arolo, Frz. of Leggiuno, Italy) was an American journalist and novelist.
Career
Sheean's most famous work was Personal History (New York: Doubleday, 1935).
It won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: the Most Distinguished Biography of 1935.
Film producer Walter Wanger acquired the political memoir and made it the basis for his 1940 film production Foreign Correspondent, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Sheean served as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune during the Spanish Civil War.
Sheean wrote the narration for the feature-length documentary Crisis (1939) directed by Alexander Hammid and Herbert Kline. He translated Ève Curie's biography of her mother, Madame Curie (1939), into English.
Sheean wrote Oscar Hammerstein I: Life and Exploits of an Impresario (1955) as well as a controversial biography of Dorothy Thompson and Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy and Red (1963).
He studied at the University of Chicago, becoming part of a literary circle which included Glenway Wescott, Yvor Winters, Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Janet Lewis while he was there.
The public source identifies “Vincent Sheean” as american journalist and novelist (1899–1975). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Vincent, Sheean and American.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Vincent Sheean”, the useful work is to connect “american journalist and novelist (1899–1975)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2526733. VIAF identifies the subject as 78164. The Library of Congress control number is n50022139. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1975, 1935 and 1940.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Vincent Sheean”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Vincent Sheean primary sources, Vincent Sheean archive and Vincent research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Vincent Sheean”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Vincent Sheean” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.