Stephen Vincent Benét

Stephen Vincent Benét (born July 22, 1898, Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died March 13, 1943, New York, New York) was an American poet, novelist, and writer of short stories who won a Pulitzer Prize for John Brown’s Body (1928), a long narrative poem on the American Civil War.

Born into a military family with literary inclinations, Benét was reared on army posts. His father read poetry aloud to Stephen as well as an older brother, William Rose, and a sister, Laura, all of whom became writers. Stephen published his first book at age 17. Civilian service during World War I interrupted his education at Yale University. He received his M.A. degree after the war, submitting his third volume of poems instead of a thesis.

After publishing the much-admired Ballad of William Sycamore 1790–1880 (1923), three novels, and a number of short stories, he went to France, where he wrote John Brown’s Body (1928), his most widely read work. It takes the Civil War as its subject, beginning just before John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and ending after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A version of the poem dramatized by Charles Laughton in 1953 was performed in theaters across the United States.

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A Book of Americans (1933)—a collection of poems Benét wrote with his wife, Rosemary—brought many historical characters to life for American schoolchildren. His preoccupation with historical themes was also the basis for Western Star, an ambitious epic verse narrative on American history that Benét first planned in 1934 to consist of as many as five books. It was left uncompleted because of his death, caused by a heart attack, in 1943. Book I, complete in itself and finished in 1942, was published posthumously.

In all, Benét published more than 17 volumes of prose and verse. His best-known short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1937), a humorous treatment of a theme from folklore, was the basis for a play by Archibald MacLeish, an opera by Douglas Moore, and two motion pictures (1941, 2001).