De Voto, Bernard [Augustine] (1897–1955), Utah‐born professor of English at Northwestern University (1922–27) and Harvard (1929–36), later edited
The Saturday Review of Literature (1936–38), and occupied the “Easy Chair” of
Harper's (1935–55). As Literary Editor of the Mark Twain Estate he issued previously unpublished manuscripts as
Mark Twain in Eruption (1940) and
Letters from the Earth (1962). His own studies of the writer include
Mark Twain's America (1932) and
Mark Twain at Work (1942). His study of “the continental experience,” a trilogy on the impact of the West on the American mind, is contained in
The Course of Empire (1952), about discovery and exploration from the 16th century to the 19th;
Across the Wide Missouri (1947, Pulitzer Prize), about the Rocky Mountain fur trade; and
The Year of Decision: 1846 (1943). Other studies of American ideas include
Forays and Rebuttals (1936),
Minority Report (1940), and
The Easy Chair (1955), collections of forthright essays; and
The Literary Fallacy (1944), criticizing American authors of the 1920s for holding aloof from vital experience. His novels include
The Crooked Mile (1924),
The Chariot of Fire (1926),
The House of Sun‐Goes‐Down (1928),
We Accept with Pleasure (1934),
Mountain Time (1947), and lesser fiction under the name John August. A collection of
Letters (1975) was edited by Wallace Stegner, who also wrote a biography (1974).
