About the Author

George Rippey Stewart (1895-1980) earned an M.A. from Berkeley in 1920 for his [Robert Louis] Stevenson in California: A Critical Study, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1922 for his Modern Metrical Technique as Illustrated by Ballad Meter (1700-1920). 

He then returned to Berkeley where he joined the English Department as a professor of English. He compiled a bibliography and commentaries on Bret Harte's works, and wrote books on English composition, American given name and place name origins, early American roadways, and popular history. 

His 1936 Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party remains the definitive book on the ill-fated Donner Party. 

Similarly, his minute by minute recreation of the final attack at Gettysburg, Pickett's Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 (1959), remains a classic. 

In terms of science fiction he is remembered for his novel Earth Abides (1949) winner of the first International Fantasy Award (1951) and acknowledged by Stephen King as the inspiration for his The Stand. Stewart's novels Storm and Fire, also published in the late 1940s, have an element of fantasy as they personify their titled physical events.