M. Scott Peck wrote ‘The Road Less Traveled’

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Author M. Scott Peck, who wrote the bestseller “The Road Less Traveled” and other self-help books, died Sunday. He was 69.

Peck died at his home in Connecticut, longtime friend and Los Angeles publicist Michael Levine said. He had suffered from pancreatic and liver duct cancer.

Born in New York City, Peck received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1958 and his doctorate from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1963. He served in the Army from 1963 to 1972.

Peck spent more than 10 years in the private practice of psychiatry and published his first book, “The Road Less Traveled,” in 1978. The self-help book, which begins, “Life is difficult,” has sold more than 6 million copies in North America and been translated into 20 languages. By the mid-1990s, the book had made 258 appearances on The New York Times best-seller list.

His other books include “People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil,” “Meditations From the Road,” and “Further Along the Road Less Traveled.”

From Herald news services