Fletcher Pratt

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Murray Fletcher Pratt (* 25. April 1897 in a reserve in Buffalo , New York ; † 10. June 1956 in Long Branch , New Jersey ) was an American writer and translator. Pratt, who is best known for his historical works, created several fantasy and science fiction novels, along with Lyon Sprague de Camp the Harold Shea stories. Pratt used various pseudonyms , including George W. Fletcher and Irwin Lester .

Life

Murray Fletcher Pratt, who left Hobart College after just a year, initially worked as a librarian, flyweight prize boxer and reporter for the Buffalo Courier Express . He translated SF novels from German for Amazing Stories , before starting in 1929 to publish his own stories in various pulp magazines .

In 1926 he married Inga Stephens, an artist who illustrated some of his books. In the 1940s Pratt established the Trap Door Spiders Club , which included Lyon Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov . Asimov immortalized the club in some of his stories, naming the club in Black Widowers and giving the founder the name Ralph Ottur .

Pratt, who initially wrote short stories and engaged in military history as a hobby, published his first book, The Heroic Years , in 1934 . This nonfiction book is about the Napoleonic Wars and the Madison Administration in the USA. Pratt, who always worked on multiple projects at once, wrote other non-fiction books, including a critically acclaimed work on the American Civil War, The Civil War . In collaboration with L. Sprague de Camp, he wrote some fantasy novels and stories, such as the humorous Harold Shea books, which were reissued as The Complete Compleat Enchanter in 1989. The novel The Well of the Unicorn , published in 1948 , is a sequel to Lord Dunsany's play King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior .

Fletcher Pratt authored about 50 books, his last, The Compact History of the United States Navy , being completed two weeks before his death in 1956.

bibliography

Harold Shea / Incomplete Enchanter cycle (with Lyon Sprague de Camp)
  • 1 The Roaring Trumpet (1940)
  • 2 The Mathematics of Magic (1940)
  • The Incomplete Enchanter (modified version of The Roaring Trumpet and The Mathematics of Magic , 1941)
    • German: At the Cross of the Worlds. Pabel (Utopia Science Fiction # 529), 1967.
  • 3 The Castle of Iron (1941)
  • 4 Wall of Serpents (1953)
    • English: Under the spell of math magic . Ullstein 2000 # 74 (3068), 1974, ISBN 3-548-03068-8 .
  • 5 The Green Magician (1954)
    • English: The Wall of Serpents & The Green Magician. Heyne SF&F # 3881, 1982, ISBN 3-453-30768-2 .
  • The Compleat Enchanter (Collective Edition from 1–3, 1975)
  • The Intrepid Enchanter: The Complete Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea (Collective Edition from 1–5, 1988, also as The Complete Compleat Enchanter , 1989, and The Compleat Enchanter , 2000)
    • German: Mathemagie . Heyne SF&F # 4532, 1988, ISBN 3-453-02790-6 (the first 5 Harold Shea novels in one volume).
  • Sir Harold and the Gnome King (short story, 1991)
  • with Christopher Stasheff: The Enchanter Reborn (anthology, 1992)
  • with Christopher Stasheff: The Exotic Enchanter (anthology, 1995)
Novels
  • The Land of Unreason (1942, with L. Sprague de Camp)
  • The Carnelian Cube (1948, with L. Sprague de Camp)
    • German: The best of all worlds. Pabel (Utopia Classics # 7), 1979.
  • The Well of the Unicorn (1948, also as George U. Fletcher)
    • German: The unicorn source. Translated by Joachim Pente. Heyne SF&F # 3671, 1979, ISBN 3-453-30588-4 .
  • Double Jeopardy (1952)
    • German: Man from the machine. Pabel (Utopia Science Fiction # 358), 1962.
  • The Blue Star (1952)
  • The Undying Fire (1953)
  • Invaders from Rigel (1960, also as Onslaught from Rigel )
    • German: Comet of Metamorphosis. Ullstein (Ullstein 2000 # 110 (3213)), 1976, ISBN 3-548-03213-3 .
  • Alien Planet (1962)
Collections
  • Double in Space (1951, US version, contains Project Excelsior and The Wanderer's Return )
  • Tales from Gavagan's Bar (1953, with L. Sprague de Camp)
  • Double in Space (1954, UK version, contains Project Excelsior and The Conditioned Captain )
Short stories
  • The Octopus Cycle (1928, with Irvin Lester)
  • The Great Steel Panic (1928, with Irvin Lester)
  • The Roger Bacon Formula (1929, with Irvin Lester)
  • The Reign of the Ray (1929, with Irvin Lester)
  • Danger (1929, with Irvin Lester)
  • The Mad Destroyer (1930)
  • The City of the Living Dead (1930, with Laurence Manning )
  • The Pineal Stimulato (1930, with Inga Stephens Pratt)
  • The War of the Giants (1931)
  • A Voice Across the Years (1932, with Inga Stephens Pratt)
  • The Pellucid Horror (1933, as BF Ruby)
  • Dr. Grimshaw's Sanitarium (1934)
  • The Thing in the Woods (1935, with BF Ruby)
  • Expedition to Pluto (1939, with Laurence Manning)
  • Pardon My Mistake (1946)
  • The Seed from Space (1951)
  • Ultimate Purpose (1951, with Walter Kubilius)
  • Asylum Satellite (1951, also as Project Excelsior )
  • The Wanderer's Return (1951)
  • A Violation of Rules (1952)
  • Solution Vital (1952, with Walter Kubilius)
  • Double Jeopardy (1952)
  • The Square Cube Law (1952)
  • Official Record (1952)
  • Second Chance (1952, with Walter Kubilius)
  • The Long View (1952)
  • Hormones (1953)
  • Potemkin Village (1953)
  • The Conditioned Captain (1953)
    • English: The suspicious spaceship commander. Pabel (Utopia Science Fiction # 296) 1961.
  • Capital Expenditure (1953)
    • German: Nothing is free. In: Günter M. Schelwokat (Ed.): 11 Witches Stories. Heyne Anthologies # 37, 1973.
  • The Spiral of the Ages (1954)
Non-fiction
  • The Heroic Years: Fourteen Years of the Republic 1801-1815 (1934)
  • The Cunning Mulatto and Other Cases of Ellis Parker, American Detective (1935, also as Detective No. 1 , 1936)
  • Ordeal by Fire: An Informal History of the Civil War (1935, also called A Short History of the Civil War )
  • Hail, Caesar! (1936)
  • The Navy: A History (1938)
  • Road to Empire: The Life and Times of Bonaparte the General (1939)
  • Sea Power and Today's War (1939; 0)
  • Secret and Urgent: The Story of Codes and Ciphers (1939)
  • Fletcher Pratt's Naval War Game (1940)
  • Fighting Ships of the US Navy (1941, with Jack Coggins)
  • America and Total War (1941)
  • The US Army (1942)
  • What the Citizen Should Know about Modern War (1942)
  • The Navy Has Wings (1943)
  • My Life to the Destroyers (1944, with LA Abercrombie)
  • The Navy's War (1944)
    • English: America's fleet at war. Overseas Editions, New York 1944.
  • A Short History of the Army and Navy (1944)
  • Fleet Against Japan (1946)
  • Empire of the Sea (1946)
  • Night Work: The Story of Task Force 39 (1946)
  • A Man and His Meals (1947, with Robeson Bailey)
  • The Empire and Glory: Napoleon Bonaparte 1800–1806 (1948)
  • The Marines' War (1948)
  • Eleven Generals: Studies in American Command (1949)
  • The Third King (1950)
  • War for the World: A Chronicle of Our Fighting Forces in World War II (1950)
  • Prebble's Boys: Commodore Prebble and the Birth of American Sea Power (1950)
  • Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles, and Space Ships (1951, with Jack Coggins)
    • English: Rockets: From the rocket to the spaceship. Translated by Heinz Gartmann. With a foreword by Willy Ley . Blüchert, Stuttgart 1954.
  • The Monitor and the Merrimac (1951)
  • By Space Ship to the Moon (1952, children's book, with Jack Coggins)
    • English: space flight to the moon. Blüchert, Stuttgart 1954.
  • Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War (1953)
  • All about Rockets and Jets (1955)
  • The Civil War (1955)
  • Famous Inventors and Their Inventions (1955)
  • The Battles that Changed History (1956)
    • English: Battles That Made History: From Issus to the Midways. Translated by Rüdiger von Borcke and Anja Frohneberg. Econ, Düsseldorf 1965.
  • Civil War on Western Waters (1956)
  • The Compact History of the United States Navy (1957)

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Fletcher Pratt  - Sources and full texts (English)
personal data
SURNAME Pratt, Fletcher
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pratt, Murray Fletcher (full name); Fletcher, George W. (pen name); Lester, Irwin (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Buffalo , New York
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1956
Place of death Long Branch , New Jersey