Murray Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and history, particularly noted for his works on naval history and on the American Civil War.
According to L. Sprague de Camp, Pratt was born near Tonawanda, New York, and attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920s he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In 1926, he married Inga Stephens, an artist. In the late 1920...
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Murray Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and history, particularly noted for his works on naval history and on the American Civil War.
According to L. Sprague de Camp, Pratt was born near Tonawanda, New York, and attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920s he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In 1926, he married Inga Stephens, an artist. In the late 1920s he began selling stories to pulp magazines. Again, according to de Camp's memoir, when a fire gutted his apartment in the 1930s he used the insurance money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After that he began writing histories.
Pratt was a military analyst for Time magazine (whose obituary described him as "bearded, gnome-like" and listed "raising marmosets" among his hobbies), as well as a regular reviewer of historical nonfiction and fantasy and science fiction for the New York Times Book Review.
Wargamers know Pratt as the inventor of...
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