George R. Stewart

George Rippey Stewart (May 31, 1895 – August 22, 1980) was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

Born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, Stewart was educated at Princeton University, the University of California, and Columbia University.

He is best known for his only science fiction novel "Earth Abides" (1949), a post-apocalyptic novel, for which he won the first International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was dramatized on radio's "Escape" and inspired Stephen King's "The Stand", as King has stated. [cite web |url=http://www.sfsite.com/11a/ea92.htm |title=George R. Stewart |accessdate=2007-06-12 |format=sidebar |last=Dodds |first=Georges T |work= ]

His 1941 novel "Storm", featuring as its protagonist a Pacific storm called "Maria," prompted the National Weather Service to use personal names to designate storms [cite web |url=http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/basics/naming.shtml |title=Naming Hurricanes |accessdate=2007-06-12 |format=National Hurricane Center |work= ] and inspired Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musical "Paint Your Wagon". [ [http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/J4.html Dorst, Neal. "Hurricane Research Division: Frequently Asked Questions:J4] ] "Storm" was dramatized as "A Storm Called Maria" on a 1959 episode of ABC's "Disneyland".

Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.

Bibliography

‎
*"Bret Harte: Argonaut and Exile" (1931)
*"Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party" (1936)
*"John Phoenix" (1937)
*"East of Giants" (1939)
*"Doctor's Oral" (1939)
*"Take your Bible in one hand;: The life of William Henry Thomes, author of A whaleman's adventures on land and sea, Lewey and I, The bushrangers, A gold hunter's adventures, etc.", 1939
*"Storm" (1941)
*"Names on the Land" (1945), a study on the etymology of American place-names
*"Man, An Autobiography" (1946)
*"Fire" (1948)
*"Earth Abides" (1949)
*"The Year of the Oath (in collaboration) (1950)
*"Sheep Rock" (1951)
*"The Opening of the California Trail: the story of the Stevens party by Moses Schallenberger, 1888"; edited 1953
*" U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America" (1953)
*"American Ways of Life" (1954)
*"To California by Covered Wagon" (1954):reprinted as "Pioneers Go West" (1987)
*"The Years of the City" (1955)
*"N.A. 1: The North-South Continental Highway" (1957)
*"Pickett's Charge" (1959)
*"The California Trail" (1962)
*"Pickett's charge: A microhistory of the final attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 (Premier Civil War Classic)", 1963
*"Committee of Vigilance" (1964)
*"Good Lives" (1967)
*"Not So Rich as You Think" (1968)
*"A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names" (1970)
*"Names on the Globe" (1975)
*"American Given Names" (1979)

References

*"George R. Stewart, toponymist," "Names", Volume 24, 1976, pp. 77-85.

Listen to

* [http://www.otr.net/?p=esca OTR Network Library: "Escape": "Earth Abides," parts one and two]

External links

* [http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/onoma/Default.htm#Stewart American Name Society biography of Stewart by William Bright]
* [http://www.route40.net/history/whos-who/george-stewart.shtml Donald M. Scott: "George R. Stewart: The Man Who Named the Wind"]
* [http://www.route40.net/cgi-bin/bookscatstewart.cgi Extensive list of books and papers and talks by George R. Stewart]