James Alonzo Bishop (November 21, 1907 – July 26, 1987)[1][2] was an American journalist and author who wrote the bestselling book The Day Lincoln Was Shot.[3]
In 1930, Bishop got a job as a cub reporter at New York Daily Mirror, where he worked until 1943, when he joined Collier's magazine. He remained there until 1945.
His plans to write for his friend and mentor, Hollywood producer Mark Hellinger, ended with Hellinger's death in 1947. Bishop wrote a biography of Hellinger in 1952.[3]
Bishop spent the remainder of his career writing biographical books about notable figures and Christian-themed books.
Bishop's book The Day Lincoln Was Shot was published in 1955. Bishop had worked on the book for 24 years. The book was successful, selling more than 3 million copies, and it was translated into 16 languages.[1]
Bishop also wrote The Day Christ Died (1957), The Day Christ Was Born (1960), and The Day Kennedy Was Shot (1968). Perhaps his most critically acclaimed book was FDR's Last Year: April 1944 – April 1945 (1974), which brought to public awareness the secrecy that surrounded President Franklin D. Roosevelt's declining health during World War II.[3]
An autobiography, A Bishop's Confession, was published in 1981.
Writing in Crisis Magazine sixty years after the publication of The Day Christ Died, Michael De Sapio offers these words of admiration for the author:
Jim Bishop was at heart a Catholic who believed in the veracity of the Gospels. There is no biblical revisionism here, no reductive attempts to purge the miraculous out of scripture.[5]
Bishop died of respiratory failure on 26 July 1987 at his home in Delray Beach, Florida.[1]
