Fletcher Pratt

Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was a science fiction and fantasy writer; he was also well-known as a writer on naval history and on the American Civil War.

According to L. Sprague de Camp, Pratt was born near Buffalo, 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 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.

Wargamers know Pratt as the inventor of a set of rules for civilian naval wargaming, before the Second World War. De Camp met him through his wargaming group.

Fletcher Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Isaac Asimov. Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, To the Barest, as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.

Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea series, was eventually published in full as The Complete Compleat Enchanter. His solo fantasy novels Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star are also highly regarded.

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

Selected Bibliography

Series

• Incomplete Enchanter
  • The Incomplete Enchanter (1940) with L. Sprague de Camp
  • Castle of Iron (1941) with L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Wall of Serpents (1960) with L. Sprague de Camp
    • Variant Title: The Enchanter Completed (1980 UK) (1960) [as by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp ]

Novels

• The Land of Unreason (1941) with L. Sprague de Camp
• Well of the Unicorn (1948)
• The Carnelian Cube (1948) with L. Sprague de Camp
• The Blue Star (1952)
• Double Jeopardy (1952)
• The Undying Fire (1953)
• Invaders from Rigel (1960)
• Alien Planet (1962)
• The Well of the Unicorn (1995)

Collections

• Double in Space (1951)
• Double Jeopardy (1952)
• Tales From Gavagan's Bar (1953) with L. Sprague de Camp
• The Compleat Enchanter (1975) with L. Sprague de Camp
• Tales from Gavagan's Bar (Expanded Edition) (1978) with L. Sprague de Camp
• The Incomplete Enchanter (1986) with L. Sprague de Camp
• The Intrepid Enchanter (1987) with L. Sprague de Camp
• The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989) with L. Sprague de Camp

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