Robert Leslie Carroll Conly (January 11, 1918 – March 5, 1973), better known by his pen name Robert C. O'Brien, was an American novelist and a journalist for National Geographic magazine. Early life Conly was born in Brooklyn, New York, the third of five children in a wealthy Irish Catholic family. With interests in music and literature, Conly entered Williams College in 1935 but left in his second year. He then went through a period that he referred to as his "breakdown", briefly working in Albany, New York, before going back to his family in disgrace. Although he later studied for a time at Juilliard, he went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Rochester in 1940. Writings Journalism After his university graduation, Conly had a brief stint in an advertising agency, and then began working for Newsweek. He was ineligible for conscription during World War II, as unfit due to physical and mental ailments (classification 4-F in later terms). He then covered national and city news for the Washington Times-Herald beginning in 1944 and later the Pathfinder, a news magazine. In 1951, he began working as an editor and writer for National Geographic, a job which was to take him around the world. From 1970 until his death he was a senior assistant editor there.

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Robert Leslie Carroll Conly (January 11, 1918 – March 5, 1973), better known by his pen name Robert C. O'Brien, was an American novelist and a journalist for National Geographic magazine.