Wikipedia

Fletcher Pratt

Murray Fletcher Pratt(25 April 1897 – 10 June 1956) was anAmericanwriterof history,science fiction,andfantasy.He is best known for his works onnaval historyand theAmerican Civil Warand for fiction written withL. Sprague de Camp.

Fletcher Pratt
Fletcher Pratt, as pictured in the June 1929 issue of Science Wonder Stories
Fletcher Pratt, as pictured in the June 1929 issue ofScience Wonder Stories
Born(1897-04-25)April 25, 1897
Buffalo, New York
DiedJune 10, 1956(1956-06-10)(aged 59)
Long Branch, New Jersey,US
Pen nameIrvin Lester, George U. Fletcher
OccupationNovelist, historian
NationalityAmerican
GenreScience fiction,fantasy,history
Notable worksOrdeal by Fire

Life and work

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Fletcher Pratt (left) with fellowBaker Street IrregularsChristopher MorleyandRex Stout(1944)

According to de Camp, Pratt was born nearTonawanda, New York.The son of Robert M. and Alice Horton Pratt, he attended public schools in Buffalo and graduated from high school in 1915 at theGriffith InstituteinSpringville, New York,where his father operated a trucking delivery service between Springville and Buffalo.[1][2]

Following high school he attendedHobart Collegein Geneva, New York, for one year. In February 1916 the Associated Press reported that he had been arrested for burglary in Geneva after a series of midnight cash drawer robberies that allegedly netted him less than $25. He was reported to have told police that his father did not supply him with enough funds to survive at Hobart.[3]On February 23 theBuffalo Enquirerreported: "Pratt's father came on from Springville yesterday and it was practically decided to send the youth to theState Hospital for the Insane at Willard,pending an investigation of his case by the grand jury. It is thought that he may be mentally unsound. "[4]

In May 1918 theWashington Starreported that the staff at the camp library at the Army's Camp Meade in Maryland had been strengthened by the addition of "Murray F. Pratt, who recently came here from the Buffalo, N.Y., Public Library".[5]

After a stint at theBuffalo Courier-Expresshe settled in New York City in 1920 and worked for aStaten Islandnewspaper before turning to freelance writing in 1923.[6]In 1926, he marriedInga Stephens,an artist.[7]According to de Camp she was his second wife. In the late 1920s he began selling stories topulp magazines,primarily the science fiction magazines published byHugo Gernsback.Many of these stories were either written with a collaborator or were translations from French and German sources.

When a fire gutted his apartment in the early 1930s, according to de Camp's memoir, he used the insurance money to study at theSorbonnefor a year. After his return from France he was a staff writer forAmerican Detective,a true crime magazine, and began writing histories. His short history of the Civil War,Ordeal by Fire,was published to critical acclaim in 1935 and became a bestseller.

Pratt's novelette "The Octopus Cycle" was the cover story in the May 1928Amazing Stories

Starting in the summer of 1937 Pratt became a regular at the annualBread Loaf Writers' Conferencein Vermont for the next 18 years, eventually becoming their Dean of Nonfiction.

During World War II Pratt was a military analyst for theNew York Postand forTimemagazine (whose obituary described him as "bearded, gnome-like" and listed "raisingmarmosets"among his hobbies),[8]and later was a regular reviewer of historical nonfiction and fantasy and science fiction for theNew York Times Book Review.

Following World War II the Pratts came into possession of a rambling 31-room Victorian mansion on a high bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, purchased by Inga Stephens Pratt's wealthy mother for use as a summer place. Whimsically dubbed The Ipsy-Wipsy Institute, the house became a watering hole for Fletcher's literary friends at an unending succession of marathon weekend house parties. A number of writers moved into the mansion's many bedrooms and spent entire summers there. Frequent guests and residents at Ipsy-Wipsy includedWilliam Lindsay Gresham,John Ciardi,William Sloane,Basil Davenport,Lester del Rey,Ted Sturgeon,Esther Carlson,Fred Pohl,John D. Clark,Willy Ley,Judith Merrill,Eugenie Clark,L. Sprague de Camp,and many others.Laurence Manning,Pratt's old writing partner from the 1930s, purchased part of the property and moved in next door. The Pratts simultaneously maintained a large apartment in Midtown Manhattan near Central Park, where they hosted meetings of theHydra Club.

Pratt was the inventor of a set of rules for navalwargaming,which he created before theSecond World War.This was known as the"Fletcher Pratt Naval War Game"and it involved dozens of tiny wooden ships, built on a scale of one inch to 50 feet. These were spread over the floor of Pratt's apartment and their strengths were calculated via a complex mathematical formula. Noted author and artistJack Cogginswas a frequent participant in Pratt's Navy Game, and de Camp met him through his wargaming group.[9]

Pratt established the literary dining club known as theTrap Door Spidersin 1944. The name is a reference to the reclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as theBlack Widowersin a series ofmysterystories byIsaac Asimov.Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, "To the Barest", as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.

He was also a charter member ofThe Civil War Round Table of New York,organized in 1951, and served as its president from 1953 to 1954. In 1956, after his death, the Round Table's board of directors established the Fletcher Pratt Award in his honor, which is presented every May to the author or editor of the best non-fiction book on the Civil War published during the preceding calendar year.[10]

Aside from his historical writings, Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorousHarold Sheaseries, eventually published in full asThe Complete Compleat Enchanter(1989,ISBN0-671-69809-5). His solo fantasy novelsThe Well of the UnicornandThe Blue Starare also highly regarded. Pratt's story "Dr. Grimshaw's Sanitarium" was adapted for radio drama by George Lefferts, and broadcast twice: first onDimension X(September 22, 1950) and then onX Minus One(July 14, 1955).

Pratt wrote in a markedly identifiable prose style, reminiscent of the style ofBernard DeVoto.One of his books is dedicated "To Benny DeVoto, who taught me to write."

Several of Pratt's books were illustrated byInga Stephens Pratt,his wife.

Legacy

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David Kahn,author of the groundbreaking 1967 bookThe Codebreakers,gave full credit for his start on the subject to Pratt'sSecret and Urgent(1939) that Kahn had found in theGreat Neck, NYpublic library as a pre-teen in the 1940s."'It hooked me — and I never grew up,' he toldThe Washington Postin 1978. "[11]

Bibliography

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Wikisourcehas original works by or about:
Fletcher Pratt

Novels

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Novellas (short novels)

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  • "Asylum Satellite" (1951)
  • "The Wanderer's Return" (1951)

Series

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Harold Shea

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Collections

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A Pratt-de Camp "Gavagan's Bar" story was cover-featured on the January 1959 issue ofFantastic Universe

Anthologies

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Twayne Triplets (edited)

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Nonfiction

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  • Fletcher Pratt's Naval War Game(1940). A book on the Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame was printed in 2011. Seelink
  • A Man and His Meals(1947)
  • World of Wonder: an Introduction to Imaginative Literature(1951)

Science

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  • All About Famous Inventors and Their Inventions(1955) illustrated byRus Anderson
  • All About Rockets and Jets(1955) illustrated byJack Coggins
  • Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles and Spaceships(1951) withJack Coggins
  • By Space Ship to the Moon(1952) withJack Coggins
  • Rockets, Satellites and Space Travel(1958) withJack Coggins

History and biography

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  • The Compact History of the United States Navy(1957)OCLC367782
  • Empire and the Sea(1946) with Inga Stephens
  • Fighting Ships of the U.S. Navy(1941) illustrated byJack Coggins
  • Fleet Against Japan(1946)
  • The Navy has Wings; the United States Naval Aviation(1943)
  • The Navy, a History; the Story of a Service in Action(1938)
  • The Navy's War(1944)
  • Night Work: the Story of Task force 39(1946)OCLC1492544
  • Preble's Boys; Commodore Preble and the Birth of American Sea Power(1950)LCCN50-10765
  • Sea Power and Today's War(1939)OCLC1450484
  • Ships, Men - and Bases(1941) with Frank Knox
  • A Short History of the Army and Navy(1944)
The Napoleonic Wars
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  • The Empire and the Glory; Napoleon Bonaparte: 1800-1806(1948)
  • Road to Empire; the Life and Times of Bonaparte, the General(1939)
War of 1812
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  • The Heroic Years; Fourteen Years of the Republic, 1801-1815(1934)
The Civil War
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  • Ordeal by Fire; an Informal History of the Civil War(1935)
  • The Monitor and the Merrimac(1951)
  • The Military Genius of Abraham Lincoln: an Essay(1951) by Colin R. Ballard; introduction by Pratt
  • Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War(1953)
  • The Civil War(1955)
  • Civil War in Pictures(1955)
  • Civil War on Western Waters(1956)
World War II
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  • America and Total War(1941)
  • The U.S. Army: a Guide to its Men and Equipment(1942) with David Pattee
  • What the Citizen Should Know about Modern War(1942)
  • The Marines' War, an Account of the Struggle for the Pacific from Both American and Japanese Sources(1948)
  • War for the World; a Chronicle of Our Fighting Forces in World War II(1950)
Other
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"The City of the Living Dead" was republished in a 1947 issue ofAvon Fantasy Reader
  • The Cunning Mulatto and Other Cases of Ellis Parker, American Detective(1935) with Ellis Parker
  • Hail, Caesar!(1936)
  • The Lost Battalion(1938) with Thomas M. Johnson
  • Muscle-power Artillery(1938)
  • "The City of the Living Dead" (1939) withLaurence Manning.
  • Secret and Urgent; the Story of Codes and Ciphers(1939)OCLC795019
  • My Life to the Destroyers(1944) with L. A. Abercrombie
  • Eleven Generals; Studies in American Command(1949)
  • The Third King(1950)
  • The Battles that Changed History(1956)ISBN0-486-41129-X

Wargame rules

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The rules of Pratt's wargame, official variants, and a number of stories about participants and events in his wargame club have been published inFletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame: Wargaming with model ships 1900 - 1945by John Curry, ISBN 978-1-4475-1855-6, published by Naval Wargaming Books.

References

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  1. ^"Graduation Class of Forty Members",Springville Journal,June 24, 1915, p.8.
  2. ^"Lt. Commander Robert H. Pratt Dies",Springville Journal,June 6, 1957, p.6.
  3. ^"Accuse Springville Youth of Robbing Newspaper",Buffalo Courier,Feb. 22, 1916, p.9. The Associated Press mistakenly identified Pratt as Murray S. Pratt, which was copied by every newspaper that covered the story.
  4. ^"May Send Hobart Collegian Away",Buffalo Enquirer,Feb. 23, 1916, p.6.
  5. ^"8,000 More Acres Planned For Meade",Washington Evening Star,May 2, 1918, p.17.
  6. ^"Fletcher Pratt, Noted Author, Dies at 59",Atlantic Highlands Journal,June 15, 1956, p. 2.
  7. ^Preface by David Madden toA Short History of the Civil War: Ordeal by Fireby Fletcher Pratt.
  8. ^""Milestones",Time,June 18, 1956
  9. ^For further details about the game, including much previously unpublished material, see the Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame, published in 2011 by the History of Wargaming Project wargaming.co
  10. ^"The Fletcher Pratt Award".Civil War Round Table.Archived fromthe originalon March 20, 2021.RetrievedDecember 27,2017.
  11. ^Risen, Clay,"David Kahn, Leading Historian of Codes and Code Breaking, Dies at 93",New York Times,February 9, 2024. Embedded link:Myra MacPherson,"The Secret Life of David Kahn: Uncovering Spies and Secret Codes / From the Age of 12 He's Been Hooked on Spies and Codes",Washington Post,June 8, 1978. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
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