George R. Stewart (1895—1980) was born in Pennsylvania and educated at Princeton. He received his Ph.D. in English literature from Columbia University in 1922, and joined the English faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1924. He was a toponymist, founding member of the American Name Society, and a prolific and highly successful writer of novels and of popular nonfiction, especially dealing with U.S. history and with the American West.
“A surprisingly terrifying short novel about children kidnapped by
pirates, elevated from its silliness by surprising moments of
violence and introspection, as well as repeated flourishes of
literary brilliance. Also, it’s funny.” —Emily Temple, Lit
Hub
"It chronicles the nomenclatural adventures of explorers,
legislators, and common folk and amounts to a fizzy refresher on
America's past and her character. It proceeds in a spruce voice
that's a model for producing scholarship that doesn't feel leaden,
and it further inspires meditations on tricks of rhetoric and laws
of euphony...Perhaps most importantly, it is an aid to fighting
tedium: You are about to have several hundred conversations
touching on the matter of where your interlocutor is from, and
Steward gives you a map for navigating this chatter with a bit of
style." --Troy Patterson, Slate
"George R. Stewart, midcentury novelist and co-founder of the
American Name Society, gave onomastics a good name with his classic
Names on the Land (1945), a learned and rollicking act of patriotic
toponymy. Its republication, with a graceful introduction by Matt
Weiland, is a welcome reminder that the polyglot medley on our maps
is, as Mr. Stewart says, 'a chief glory of our heritage'...few
authors or books are more American--in every good sense of that
word -- than George R. Stewart and Names on the Land." --Wall
Street Journal "Stewart's impressive research demonstrates
exactly what is in a name." --The Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review "If the United States is the greatest poem, as
Whitman once wrote, then surely the Rand-McNally Road Atlas is our
national CliffsNotes. Google Maps are dandy, but there’s nothing
like pulling the old coverless atlas off the shelf and pondering a
green-dotted scenic route between two unvisited and evocatively
named points. It’s too late to plan a summer road trip, but lately
I’ve been supplementing my insomniac atlas-reading with George R.
Stewart’s Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming
in the United States.” --Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times
Papercuts blog "Names on the Land was first published in 1945
and has remained a classic in the field of onomastics--the study of
proper names and their meanings." --Los Angeles Times A
"masterwork." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune "A classic work on
American place names by George R. Stewart. I'm a place-name geek
but didn't know about this gem until I read the book recently.
First published in 1945 and newly reissued (NYRB Classics) it's a
history of the United States told through its place names. Stewart
exhaustively surveys our geographic labels, a chaotic but charming
blend of anglicized American Indian words (Wisconsin), transplanted
place names (Boston), poetic impulse (Martha's Vineyard), twisted
foreign phrases (Broadway, from the Dutch Breede Wegh) and
salesmanship (Frostproof, Fla)." --Columbus Dispatch "You've
likely heard me before on the lost-classic glories of New York
Review Books, and this is a reprint of a typically idiosyncratic
and cult-beloved World War II-era reference about just what the
title says." --OMNIVORACIOUS at Amazon.com "Unusual and
excellent...put together in a fascinating manner...The style is
also enchanting and leaves an impression that is not quickly
forgotten...Here is a book, in short, that may be read frontwards
or backwards or from the middle in either direction and be fully
enjoyed." -American Speech "As fascinating as the details are
the fine accounts of periods and trends: the Royal names of
colonial times, the names of heroes of the Revolution, abstract
names and the Civil War...Indian names, French names, Spanish
names, name-giving by Congress, name-giving by explorers and
pioneers, by land-speculators, by railroaders, by rich men, poor
men, beggar men, all acting according to the spirit of their times
in this wonderful land of accelerated history." -American
Literature. "The result of careful research into an absorbing
narrative...Interest of Americans in American geographical names as
a subject for research is at least as old as our history as a
republic." -Geographical Review Encyclopedic in scope, "this
book with its satisfactory index will be used as a dictionary. And
the disappointment of occasionally not finding what one seeks will
be assuaged by the illuminating charm of this remarkable key to our
history, our language, our society."-American Literature "A
book so interestingly and delightfully written is certain to have
wide appeal...Like all really good books, regardless of subject, it
has light to cast: something of which there seems to be never
enough to go around." -Journal of American Folkore
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