page_title: Charles Van Doren
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Van Doren / Background
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Charles Van Doren with parents Dorothy and Mark Van Doren
context_page_description: Charles Lincoln Van Doren was an American writer and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s. In 1959 he testified before the United States Congress that he had been given the correct answers by the producers of the NBC quiz show Twenty-One. Terminated by NBC, he joined Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in 1959, becoming a vice-president and writing and editing many books before retiring in 1982.
context_section_description: Charles Van Doren was born in New York City, the elder son of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, critic and teacher Mark Van Doren and novelist  Dorothy Van Doren (née Graffe), and a nephew of critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Carl Van Doren. He graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York, and earned a B.A. degree in Liberal Arts (1946) from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, as well as an M.A. in astrophysics (1949) and a Ph.D. in English (1955), both at Columbia University. He was also a student at University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
caption: Charles Van Doren in 1957, with his parents Dorothy and Mark Van Doren
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