Stewart Edward White (March 12, 1873 – September 18, 1946) was an American writer, novelist, and Spiritualist. He was a brother of noted mural painter Gilbert White.
From about 1900 until about 1922 he wrote fiction and non-fiction about adventure and travel, with an emphasis on natural history and outdoor living. Starting in 1922 he and his wife Elizabeth "Betty" Grant White wrote numerous books, that, according to them, were received through channelling with spirits. They also wrote about their travels around the state of California. White died in Hillsborough, California, on September 18, 1946, at the age of 73.[2]
Whenever you see a dust through the trees, you look first to make sure it is not raised by stray cattle. Then when you are certain of your horse and man, you start a fire in the little stove. That is the invariable rule in the mountains. The logic is simple, unanswerable, and correct. The presence of the man argues that he has ridden from some distant point, for here all points are more or less distant; and the fact in turn proves that somewhat of exercise and space have intervened last he has eaten. Therefore, no matter what the time of day, you feed him. It works out like a mathematical formula.
White's books were popular at a time when America was losing its vanishing wilderness. He was a keen observer of the beauties of nature and human nature, yet could render them in a plain-spoken style. Based on his own experience, whether writing camping journals or Westerns, he included pithy and fun details about cabin-building, canoeing, logging, gold-hunting, and guns and fishing and hunting. He also interviewed people who had been involved in the fur trade, the California Gold Rush and other pioneers which provided him with details that give his novels verisimilitude. He salted in humor and sympathy for colorful characters such as canny Indian guides and "greenhorn" campers who carried too much gear. White also illustrated some of his books with his own photographs, while some of his other books were illustrated by artists, such as the American Western painter Fernand Lungren for The Mountains and Camp and Trail. Theodore Roosevelt wrote that White was "the best man with both pistol and rifle who ever shot" at Roosevelt's rifle range at Sagamore Hill.[3]
The Long Rifle (1930), Folded Hills (1932), Ranchero (1933), and Stampede (1942) constitute The Saga of Andy Burnett, which follows a young Pennsylvania farm boy who escapes his overbearing step father by running away to the West with grandmother's blessing and "The Boone Gun", the original Kentucky rifle carried by Daniel Boone. He encounters mountain man Joe Crane, who becomes his mentor in the ways of survival in the wild. The remainder of the saga follows Andy as he moves west, ultimately settling in California, which is the setting of the last three books. The series incorporates actual events and characters from the time period in the narrative. The four stories were published as a posthumous volume, The Saga of Andy Burnett, in 1947, and were adapted into several episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney during 1957 and 1958, starring Jerome Courtland as Andy Burnett, and Jeff York (Mike Fink) as his friend and mentor Joe Crane. This series was in many ways a follow-up to Disney's much more successful Davy Crockett.
These first two books are "pre" Betty´s book. White discusses the philosophy of the future books, without revealing the source (the channeling through his wife Betty).
J. C. Underwood, Literature and Insurgency (New York, 1914)
Staff report (September 19, 1946). "Stewart E. White, Novelist, is Dead; Author of Stories of Adventure and Frontier Life Was 73—Stricken After Fabled Career; Choked Leopard to Death; Writer of 'Blazed Trail' Knew Yukon, Africa and West—Honored as Geographer", The New York Times, p. 31
