Allan Seager

American novelist

Allan Seager (February 5, 1906 – May 10, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer based in Michigan. His stories were published in such leading magazines as The New Yorker and Esquire. He also taught creative writing to generations of students at the University of Michigan from 1935 to 1968. Seager won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. After returning to the United States, he worked for a time as an assistant editor at Vanity Fair magazine in New York City. He returned to the university at Ann Arbor to teach creative writing and write his own works. He published five novels, more than 80 short stories, some of which are collected in two books; and a biography of poet Theodore Roethke.

Born and raised in Adrian, Michigan, Seager attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate. There he was a member of two national championship swimming teams. Among his classmates and lifelong friends was Theodore Roethke, who later became a renowned poet. His last book was a biography of poet Theodore Roethke, which he struggled to finish while ill. It was published in 1968. Seager identified strongly with the poet, as they had come from similar backgrounds and had created themselves as writers.

Seager married and had two daughters. He won a Fulbright Fellowship that him to take his family to travel to France for his research. He and his family lived in Tecumseh, Michigan. He died there of lung cancer in 1968.

Equinox. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943. The Inheritance. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948
Amos Berry. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953. Hilda Manning. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956
Death of Anger. New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1960.

A Frieze of Girls: Memoirs as Fiction. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964
The Old Man of the Mountain. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950

The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke. New York: McGraw Hill, 1968 (First Edition)
The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991 (Reprint Edition including introduction by poetDonald Hall)
They Worked for a Better World. New York: Macmillan, 1939.

Stendhal. Memoirs of a Tourist. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1962.