Walter Van Tilburg Clark



Walter Van Tilburg Clark (August 3, 1909 — November 10, 1971) was an American poet, fiction writer, and educator. He ranks as one of Nevada's most distinguished literary figures of the 20th century and is known primarily for his novels, his one volume of stories, as well as his uncollected short stories. As a writer, he taught himself to use the familiar materials of the western saga to explore the human psyche and to raise deep philosophical issues.

Life
Born in East Orland, Maine, Clark grew up and went to college in Reno, where his father was president of the University of Nevada. During 1933 Clark married Barbara Frances Morse and moved to Cazenovia, New York, where he taught high school English and began his fiction-writing career.

Clark's first published novel, The Ox-Bow Incident (1940), was successful and is often considered to be the first modern Western, without the genre usual clichés and formulaic plots. It is a tale about a lynch mob mistaking three innocent travelers for cattle rustlers. When the travelers are killed, the lynch mob finds that they were wrong. The book examines law and order as well as culpability. It was well-received and gave Clark literary acclaim that was unusual for a writer of Westerns.

Clark's short story, "The Portable Phonograph", is also well known. He published two more novels, The City of Trembling Leaves and The Track of the Cat, and a collection of his short stories over the next decade, which were also well-received. His short stories (such as "Hook", "The Wind And The Snow Of Winter", and "The Portable Phonograph") have been anthologized consistently as classic examples of short stories since they first began being published in national magazines during the 1940s. Two Hollywood movies were inspired by Clark's writings, and one of these (The Ox-Bow Incident) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

Although he continued to write prolifically after 1950, Clark published very little. He had several academic positions, serving for a time during the 1950s as a professor of creative writing at the University of Montana in Missoula, where he was noted by his students for his teaching skills and for his eccentric clothing which consisted of a blue turtleneck shirt, maroon corduroy jacket, grey slacks and blue socks which never varied throughout the term.

He returned later to Reno to serve as the writer-in-residence of the university from 1962 until his death (in Virginia City, Nevada) on November 10, 1971. He died almost two years to the day after his wife, and both died of cancer, as his biographer Jackson J. Benson noted in his biography of Clark, The Ox-Bow Man.

Recognition
In 1943 The Ox-Bow Incident was adapted into a movie featuring Henry Fonda.

Clark was chosen along with Robert Laxalt to be the first writer inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame when it was established during 1988 by the Friends of the University of Nevada Libraries.

Fiction

 * The Ox-Bow Incident, Random House (New York, NY), 1940, published with an introduction by Clifton Fadiman, Heritage, 1942, published with an afterword by W. P. Webb, New American Library (New York, NY), 1960, reprinted, Modern Library Paperback Classics (New York, NY), 2001.
 * The City of Trembling Leaves, Random House (New York, NY), 1945; published as Tim Hazard, Kimber (England), 1951. Reprinted as part of the Western Literature Series, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1991, 2003. With a "Foreword" by Robert Laxalt.
 * The Track of the Cat, Random House (New York, NY), 1949, reprinted, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1993, 2003, with an "Afterword" by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.
 * The Watchful Gods and Other Stories, Random House (New York, NY), 1950. (contains "Hook," "The Wind and the Snow of Winter," "The Rapids," "The Anonymous," "The Buck in the Hills," "Why Don't You Look Where You're Going?," "The Indian Well," "The Fish Who Could Close His Eyes," "The Portable Phonograph," and "The Watchful Gods"). Reprinted, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 2004. With a "Foreword" by Ann Ronald.

Poetry

 * Christmas Comes to Hialsen (1930)
 * "Dawn, Washoe Valley; Big Dusk; Pyramid Lake" (1932)
 * Ten Women in Gale's House: And Shorter Poems (1932)
 * "To a Friend with New Shoes" (1934)

Other

 * (Author of foreword) Robert Cole Caples: A Retrospective Exhibition, 1927-63 (catalog), [Reno, NV], 1964.
 * (Editor) The Journals of Alfred Doten, 1849-1903, three volumes, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1973.
 * Walter Van Tilburg Clark: Critiques, edited by Charlton Laird; University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1983. In this volume, some of Clark's works were collected and grouped with essays about Clark and his writings