Stegner, Wallace (1909-1993), was an American author best known for his fiction set in the Great Plains and mountains of the American and Canadian West. Stegner won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel Angle of Repose (1971), a family chronicle partly based on the life of Western novelist Mary Hallock Foote. Another acclaimed Stegner novel is The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943). In it, the restless hero, who resembles Stegner’s father, moves his family from place to place in an unsuccessful quest for prosperity.
In addition to his many novels, Stegner wrote short stories, essays, and biographical and historical works. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (1954) is a powerful biography of the geologist, explorer, and naturalist John Wesley Powell. Wolf Willow (1962) combines Western history, autobiography, and fiction. Stegner’s historical writings include Mormon Country (1942) and The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail (1964). Many of his essays were collected in One Way to Spell Man (1982). The Collected Stories of Wallace Stegner was published in 1990. Stegner was born in Lake Mills, Iowa, on Feb. 18, 1909. He taught at Stanford University from 1945 to 1971, where he trained many young writers who became famous. He died on April 13, 1993.
