George R. Stewart
George R. Stewart was an American novelist and academic, born on May 31, 1895, in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Princeton University and served in the U.S. Army during World War I. After obtaining his M.A. and Ph.D., he began a long academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught English and continued to contribute as an emeritus professor until his death in 1980. Stewart's writing was significantly influenced by his interests in forestry, anthropology, and history rather than traditional literary training. He published his first novel, *East of the Giants*, in 1938, and his notable work, *Earth Abides*, released in 1949, is considered a classic in science fiction, exploring themes of environmental and cultural change following a global epidemic. In addition to fiction, Stewart wrote extensively in nonfiction, including works on California history and American names. He was married to Theodosia Burton and had two children. Stewart passed away on August 22, 1980, in San Francisco, California.
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George R. Stewart
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- Born: May 31, 1895
- Birthplace: Sewickley, Pennsylvania
- Died: August 22, 1980
- Place of death: San Francisco, California
Biography
American novelist and academic George Rippey Stewart was born on May 31, 1895, in the Western Pennsylvania town of Sewickley, near the West Virginia and Ohio borders near Pittsburgh. He attended Princeton University, graduating with an A.B. degree. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I, from his graduation in 1917 until 1919. He received an M.A. from the University of California in 1920 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York in 1922.
He began his teaching career immediately upon receiving his doctorate, spending a year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before returning to the University of California at Berkeley in 1923. He would spend the remainder of his forty year academic career there, first as a professor of English and then as emeritus professor from 1962 until his death in 1980. During World War II, he spent a year as a resident fellow in creative writing at his undergraduate alma mater, and in the early 1950’s received a Fulbright fellowship to teach American literature and culture at the University of Athens.
Stewart’s interests in forestry, anthropology and history informed his writing far more than his formal literature training. In 1938, he published his first novel, East of the Giants, which received a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California in 1939. The same organization had awarded Stewart’s nonfiction study of the Donner party, Ordeal by Hunger, a Silver Medal two years earlier.
In 1949, Stewart completed the classic science-fiction novel Earth Abides. Third in a series of novels about natural disasters, following 1941’s Storm and 1948’s Fire, Earth Abides focuses on the more complicated environmental and cultural effects of a global viral epidemic. The book thus prefigures two popular science fiction subgenres—ecofiction and the biothriller—as well as anticipating the global scope of contemporary society. It received the International Fantasy Award in 1951. Although all of Stewart’s fiction engages themes of the land and its resources, only Earth Abides is generally classified as science fiction.
Stewart wrote extensively as an academic and produced a number of popular works of nonfiction, including a biography of Bret Harte, a series of books exploring aspects of California history, and several books on American names. He wrote a textbook called Technique of English Verse in 1930. Stewart married Theodosia Burton in 1924 and they had two children, Jill and John. He died on August 22, 1980, at his home in San Francisco, California.