Background

Stewart Edward White was born in Grand Rapids, Mich. , the first of the five sons of Thomas Stewart White, a prosperous lumberman, and Mary Eliza (Daniell) White. His paternal grandfather, of English and Scottish descent, had come to Grand Haven, Mich. , from Ashfield, Massachussets, in 1836; his mother was a native of Hoosick Falls, N. Y. Stewart White spent much of his early childhood traveling with his father through lumber towns in northern Michigan and later, between the ages of twelve and sixteen, to California, where his father held lumber interests. He passed his time on ranches and in the rapidly developing towns of the W. These early experiences whetted his appetite for the outdoors and adventure, and provided material for his later writings.

Education

He received his first formal schooling at sixteen, when he entered Central High School in Grand Rapids. After graduating two years later, he spent two years in the Michigan woods studying bird life and wrote several articles and a monograph that was published by the Ornithologists' Union. In 1891 he entered the University of Michigan, where he received the Ph. B. degree in 1895.

Career

Following a period of six months working in a packing house in Grand Rapids, White joined the gold rush in the Black Hills of South Dakota; he soon ran out of money, and shortly afterward he resumed his education at the Columbia Law School (1896 - 1897). While at Columbia he took an English course under Brander Matthews, who encouraged him to seek publication of a short story based on his experiences in South Dakota. The tale, "A Man and His Dog, " was sold to Short Story and launched White on his literary career. His love of the outdoors and his yen for adventure led White to spend much of his life in the wilds of North America and Africa; he often worked as trapper, lumberjack, and explorer. From these experiences came much of the material for his writings. Leaving Columbia in 1897, he worked briefly in a Chicago bookstore, but soon returned to the Michigan woods as a lumberjack and then went camping and trapping in the Hudson Bay area. During this period he wrote his first two novels, The Westerners (1901) and The Claim Jumpers (1901), both based on frontier life in South Dakota. It was not, however, until the appearance of The Blazed Trail (1902) that White established his reputation as a member of the "red-blood school of writers", which included Owen Wister, Jack London, Frank Norris, and Bret Harte. The book neared best-seller status. Presenting a vivid depiction of the rigors of the lumber frontier, this novel, like his later works, was an action-filled romance but had White's indelible stamp of verisimilitude. The hero, Harry Thorpe, through his unremitting labor, embodies the American myth of success and comes to terms with the almost mystical, supernatural elements of his surroundings. The book exemplifies the philosophy running through White's novels, that "the one great drama is that of the individual man's struggles toward perfect adjustment with his environment. According as he comes into correspondence and harmony with his environment, by that much does he succeed". Over the next forty years White wrote some thirty volumes, including novels, histories, juvenile works, travel and adventure books, essays, and short stories. The Forest (1903), The Mountains (1904), and The Cabin (1911) were based on his own camping experiences and offered his readers colorful descriptions and practical advice on outdoor living. Blazed Trail Stories (1904) and The Riverman (1908) were further tales of the Michigan woods, which achieved success. Among White's many novels recounting the history of the frontier West, such as Arizona Nights (1907) and The Forty-Niners (1918), perhaps his most ambitious undertaking was his three-volume history of California - Gold (1913), The Gray Dawn (1915), and The Rose Dawn (1920). For these novels he combined extensive research, vivid imagination, and his own experience to re-create the excitement of the gold rush for his readers. A forerunner of the prolific adventure novelists Rex Beach and Zane Grey, White wrote books that appealed to all Americans. If, in the words of Irving Bacheller, the years 1884 to 1895 made up the "highbrow decade", the early twentieth century brought a reaction against a "literature of books" and gave American readers a "literature of life. " It is this period to which White's fiction belongs. Lured by the excitement of the Dark Continent, White explored the jungles of German East Africa in 1913. For his mapping work there, he was made a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society of London. He hunted game and lived with tribesmen, gathering material for several books and essays that exposed readers to a new frontier: African Campfires (1913), The Leopard Woman (1916), and Simba (1918), illustrated with photographs, described the African wilderness in detail. These books were hailed as literary embodiments of the strenuous life advocated by Theodore Roosevelt. During World War I, White served in the American Expeditionary Forces as an artillery major. His wife accompanied him on many of his travels; she was the guide "Billy" to whom many of his books were dedicated. White settled in Santa Barbara, Calif. , and later moved to Burlingame. During the last years of his life, he became interested in psychic phenomena. As early as the 1920's, his wife had discovered, while using a ouija board, that she had psychic powers. White's initial venture into the world of parapsychological writing was The Betty Book (1937), a compilation of the messages his wife believed she had received from the "invisibles" of the spirit world. White wrote several books following her death in 1939, some based on what he believed his wife revealed to him in daily "meetings" with her through a medium. In The Stars Are Still There (1946), he attempted to deal with some of the more common questions about his wife's experiences and his own beliefs, which he was questioned about in thousands of letters from readers. White died of cancer in the University of California Hospital, San Francisco. Following cremation, his ashes were buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, San Mateo County.

Achievements

• Although White never claimed literary distinction for his work, his depiction of the frontiers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America placed him among that group of writers who, reacting against what they considered an earlier literary romanticism, attempted to inject more elements of naturalism and realism into their writing.

Works

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  • The Complete Works of Stewart Edward White (23 Complete Works of Stewart Edward White Including Arizona Nights, Blazed Trail Stories, Camp and Trail, The Call of the North, The Claim Jumpers, & More)

    (23 Complete Works of Stewart Edward White African Camp F...)

  • The Cabin (1911)

    (A true account of how the famous novelist Stewart Edward ...)

  • The Unobstructed Universe

    (An undisputed classic in the field of psychic exploration...)

  • The Mountains

    (The author has followed a true sequence of events practic...)

  • The Collected Complete Works of Stewart Edward White (Huge Collection Including Arizona Nights, Blazed Trail Stories, The Call of the North, The Adventures of Bobby Orde, The Killer, And More)

    (Stewart Edward White was an American writer, novelist, an...)

  • The Land of Footprints

    ("A notable book adventures with lion and buffalo... thril...)

  • Pole Star

    (fiction)

  • book

  • book

Connections

White married Elizabeth Calvert Grant of Newport, R. I. on April 28, 1904; they had no children.

Father:

Thomas Stewart White

A prosperous lumberman

Mother:

Mary Eliza (Daniell) White

Spouse:

Elizabeth Calvert Grant