Robert Lester Stallman was an American literary critic, English professor and science fiction writer, author of the Book of the Beast trilogy. He wrote under the name of Robert L. Stallman in his academic writings, and Robert Stallman for his fiction.^[1][2]

Biography

Stallman was born in Kankakee, Illinois,^[1] the son of Otto John Melvin Stallman and Martha Elizabeth (Lester) Stallman. His father worked as a grainer in a bed factory. Stallman was raised in the vicinity of Kankakee.^[3][4] He served in the US Army from September 16, 1952 to September 7, 1954.^[5]

Stallman received a bachelor's degree in English in 1957^[6] and a master's degree in English in 1961,^[7][6] both from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1966.^[6] He worked as a professor of English at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan,^[1] and was an authority on William Morris, as witness his doctoral thesis The Quest of William Morris (Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon Press, 1966).^[6][1] and various articles published in professional journals.

Stallman died in Kalamazoo.^[1][8]

Literary career

Stallman's literary reputation is founded on his Book of the Beast trilogy, written late in life and published in part posthumously. According to Peter Nicholls the work is "an engrossing series" of "complex, sensitively written Fabulations, fitting between the generic borders of sf and Horror, and update the myth of the Werewolf with [an] sf premise." He finds the final volume "awkwardly structured," however, judging it "needed a auctorial revision which it could not be given" due to Stallman's premature death.^[1]