Philip Van Doren Stern (September 10, 1900 – July 31, 1984) was an American writer, editor, and

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

historian whose story "

The Greatest Gift "The Greatest Gift" is a 1943 short story written by Philip Van Doren Stern, loosely based on the Charles Dickens 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol'', which became the basis for the film ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946). It was self-published as ...

", published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film ''

It's a Wonderful Life ''It's a Wonderful Life'' is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet ''The Greatest Gift'', which Philip Van Doren Stern self-published in 1943 and is in turn loos ...

'' (1946).

Early life

Philip Van Doren Stern was born in

Wyalusing, Pennsylvania Wyalusing is a borough in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 596 as of the 2010 census. History The history of Wyalusing dates back centuries. It was originally known as ''M'chwihilus ...

, into a family of humble means. His Pennsylvania-born father, Isadore Ullman, was a traveling merchant of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

descent, who came to Wyalusing from

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

with his New Jersey-born wife, the former Anne Van Doren. Stern grew up in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Lincoln High School in Jersey City before graduating from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

Career

After graduating from Rutgers in 1924, Stern worked in advertising before switching to a career as a designer and editor in publishing. He was an historian and author of some 40 works, and was best known for his books on the Civil War"Inspiring a Holiday Classic", Rutgers University
/ref> that a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' obituary called "authoritative" and "widely respected by scholars". As an editor, he worked at

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing ...

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...

, and

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers i ...

. He compiled and annotated short story collections by and the writings and letters of

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

, and

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and h ...

. During World War II, he was a member of the planning board of the United States

Office of War Information The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and othe ...

. He was the general manager of the

Armed Services Editions Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were small paperback books of fiction and nonfiction that were distributed in the American military during World War II. From 1943 to 1947, some 122 million copies of more than 1,300 ASE titles were distributed to ...

, which resized popular books to fit in the pockets of military uniforms. He compiled and edited many collections and anthologies of short stories, pictorial books, annotations, and books on historical subjects. Stern edited, compiled, and introduced ''The Viking Portable Poe'' in 1945, a compact collection of letters, short stories, poems, and essays by Edgar Allan Poe. Stern wrote the biographical introduction to the collection, selected the contents included, and wrote introductory essays on the varying genres. The collection became a standard single-volume anthology of Poe's works for almost fifty years. Stern died on July 31, 1984 at the age of 83.

''The Greatest Gift''

Short story

Today Stern is most remembered for a short story he wrote in 1943. In February 1938 Stern awoke with the story in mind. Inspired by a dream that was reminiscent of the 1843

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

novella ''

A Christmas Carol ''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas ...

'', Stern wrote a 4000 word

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

called ''The Greatest Gift''. He began it in 1939 and finished it in 1943, but was unable to find a publisher for it. He sent 200 printed copies to friends as

Christmas card A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to Christmastide and the holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during ...

s in December 1943. His daughter, Marguerite Stern Robinson, recalled "I was in the third grade and remember delivering a few of these cards to my teachers and my friends... My father, who was himself from a mixed religious background, explained to me that while this story takes place at Christmas time, and that we were sending it as a Christmas card to our friends, it is a universal story for all people in all times."Jones, Alice. "A new lease of life for a forgotten Christmas classic", ''The Independent'', November 22, 2011
/ref> The story was published as a book in December 1944, with illustrations by Rafaello Busoni. Stern also sold it to ''Reader's Scope'' magazine, which published it in its December 1944 issue, and to the magazine ''

Good Housekeeping ''Good Housekeeping'' is an American women's magazine featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, and health, as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Hous ...

'', which published it under the title "The Man Who Was Never Born" in its January 1945 issue (published in December 1944). A small edition was produced in 1996 and yet another in 2011.Yan, Ellen, "'Second chance' for classic Christmas tale", ''Newsday'', December 11, 2011
/ref> In a 1946 interview, Stern said that the story's "Bedford Falls" had been modeled on

Califon, New Jersey Califon is a borough in Hunterdon County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 1,076,"The surprising Jersey roots of ''It's a Wonderful Life''"
NJ Advance Media for

NJ.com NJ.com is a digital news content provider and website in New Jersey owned by Advance Publications. According to a report in ''The New York Times'' in 2012, it was the largest provider of digital news in the state at the time. In 2018, comScore r ...

, December 24, 2017. Accessed December 26, 2017. "Though Capra is believed to have modeled the fictional Bedford Falls in Westchester County in his film after Seneca Falls in upstate New York, Stern said his original story was actually set in New Jersey."

''It's a Wonderful Life''

One of those pamphlets came to the attention of

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...

producer David Hempstead, who showed it to actor

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...

, who became interested in playing the lead role. RKO purchased the motion picture rights for $10,000 in April 1944."Tempest in Hollywood," ''New York Times'', April 23, 1944, p. X3. After several screenwriters worked on adaptations, RKO sold the rights to the story in 1945 to

Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s ...

's production company.

Liberty Films Liberty Films was an independent motion picture production company founded in California by Frank Capra and Samuel J. Briskin in April 1945. It produced only two films, the Christmas classic ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946), originally released b ...

for the same $10,000. Capra adapted the story into ''

'' in 1946. In December 1946,

James Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...

, who played George Bailey in the film, wrote to Van Doren Stern, calling the story "an inspiration to everyone concerned with the picture... the fundamental story was so sound and right."

Major works

* ''An End to Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War'', 1958 * ''The Case of The Thing in the Brook'', a mystery under the pseudonym Peter Storme, 1941 * ''Prehistoric Europe: From Stone Age Man to the Early Greeks'' * ''A Pictorial History of the American Automobile, 1903-1953'' * ''Edgar Allan Poe, Visitor from the Night of Time'', 1973 * ''When the Guns Roared'', 1965 * ''They Were There'', 1959 * ''Soldier Life in the Union and Confederate Armies'', 1961 * ''Henry David Thoreau: Writer and Rebel'', 1972 * ''The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln'' * ''Secret Missions of the Civil War'' * ''The Man Who Killed Lincoln: The Story of John Wilkes Booth'', 1939, dramatized and staged in New York in 1940 * ''The Annotated Walden: Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau'' * ''The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin'', 1964 * ''Robert E. Lee, The Man and the Soldier; A Pictorial Biography'' * ''The Confederate Navy: A Pictorial History'' * ''

'', 1943 * ''Lola: A Love Story'', 1949; historical novel based on the life of

Lola Montez Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld (17 February 1821 – 17 January 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez (), was an Irish dancer and actress who became famous as a Spanish dancer, courtesan, and mistress of King Ludwig I ...

* ''Tin Lizzie : The Story of the Fabulous Model T Ford'' * ''The Portable Poe'', 1945, edited, selected and with an introduction and notes by Stern

References

External links

* * A photograph of Philip Van Doren Stern: http://www.all-story.com/pix.cgi?t=a&iid=22 {{DEFAULTSORT:Stern, Philip Van Doren 1900 births 1984 deaths People from Wyalusing, Pennsylvania Rutgers University alumni Historians of the American Civil War Historians of the United States Lincoln High School (New Jersey) alumni Writers from New York City Writers from Jersey City, New Jersey Writers from Pennsylvania 20th-century American historians American people of German-Jewish descent American Ashkenazi Jews People of the United States Office of War Information