Oregon Public Broadcasting

Reed College has just received its largest-ever single donation, from a fantasy writer who graduated from the college in 1954.

The late David Eddings, author of the Belgariad and Mallorean series, left the college $14 million. Most of that money will be put in an endowment for student financial aid.

Some will be used to create a new professor's position in the English Department. And Reed President Colin Diver says another portion will be used to take care of Eddings' papers.

Colin Diver: "We have something on the order of 43 cartons full of his manuscripts. Every one of his books--the 25 or so he published, and many more he did not publish, were written out by hand on legal pads. And we have them all."

Diver says Eddings told his brother, a professor at Western Oregon University, that his education at Reed set him on the path as a writer.

Eddings died last month at age 78.  The donation comes in the midst of a philanthropic summer drought.