Mark Schorer

Mark Schorer (May 17, 1908 – August 11, 1977) was an American writer, critic, and scholar born in Sauk City, Wisconsin.

Biography Schorer earned an MA at Harvard and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1936. During his academic career, he held positions at Dartmouth, Harvard, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he chaired the Department of English from 1960 to 1965. A leading critic of his time, he was best known for his work, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life. Schorer was also the author of many short stories, which appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, and Esquire. This incident is dramatized in the film Howl (2010), in which Schorer is portrayed by Treat Williams.

In addition to his scholarly works, he also co-authored a series of science-fiction and horror stories with writer, publisher and childhood friend (both being natives of Sauk City, Wisconsin) August Derleth. These stories, originally published mainly in Weird Tales magazine during the 1920s and 1930s, were eventually anthologized in Colonel Markesan and Less Pleasant People (1966).

Schorer died from a blood infection following bladder surgery in Oakland, California at the age of 69.