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

L. Sprague de Camp says he was born near Buffalo, New York and attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920's he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In the late 20's he began selling stories to pulp magazines. Again, according to de Camp's memoir, after a fire gutted his apartment in the '30s he used the money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After that he began writing histories.

He is best known for his many collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea fantasy series which was eventually published in full as The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989, ISBN 0-671-69809-5).

Wargamers know him as the inventor of the rules for civilian naval wargaming, before the Second World War.

External links

• Bibliography at SciFan