He was one of the few true Men of Letters in this generation. Much of his literature deals with debunking myths of the West as a romantic country of heroes on horseback, and his passion for the terrain and its inhabitants have earned him the title 'The Dean of Western Letters'. His collection of essays, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs (1992), was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award.Īlthough his fiction deals with many universal themes, Stegner is primarily recognized as a writer of the American West. Among his many literary prizes are the Pulitzer Prize for Angle of Repose (1971) and the National Book Award for The Spectator Bird (1976). By the time of his death in 1993 he had published some two dozen works of fiction, history, biography, and essays.

His first novel, Remembering Laughter, was published in 1937. Throughout his career and after, Stegner's literary output was tremendous. A number of his creative writing students have become some of today's most well respected writers, including Wendell Berry, Thomas McGuane, Raymond Carver, Edward Abbey, Robert Stone, and Larry McMurty. He married Mary Stuart Page in 1934, and for the next decade the couple followed Wallace's teaching career-to the University of Wisconsin, Harvard, and eventually to Stanford University, where he founded the creative writing program, and where he was to remain until his retirement in 1971. He furthered his education at the University of Iowa, where he received a master's and a doctoral degree. Stegner received most of his education in Utah, graduating from the University in 1930.

Many of the landscapes he encountered in his peripatetic youth figure largely in his work, as do characters based on his stern father and athletic, outgoing brother. The son of Scandinavian immigrants, he traveled with his parents and brother all over the West-to North Dakota, Washington, Saskatchewan, Montana, and Wyoming-before settling in Salt Lake City in 1921. Wallace Stegner was born in 1909 in Lake Mills, Iowa.

Repose book