Ward Moore (August 10, 1903 – January 28, 1978) was the working name of American author Joseph Ward Moore. Moore grew up in New York City, and later moved to Chicago, and then to California.
Moore began publishing with the novel, Breathe the Air Again (1942), about the onset of the Great Depression. The story is told from multiple viewpoints, and Ward Moore himself appears briefly as a character in the novel.
His most famous work is the alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee (1953). This novel, narrated by Hodge Backmaker, tells of a world in which the South won the American Civil War, leaving the North in ruins.
Moore's other novels include Cloud By Day, in which a brush fire threatens a town in Topanga Canyon; Greener Than You Think, a novel about unstoppable Bermuda Grass; Joyleg (co-authored with Avram Davidson), about the purported survival of the State of Franklin; Caduceus Wild (co-authored with Robert Bradford), about a medarchy, a nation governed by physicians.
Moore is also known for the two short stories (since collected) "Lot" (1953) and "Lot's Daughter" (1954) which are postapocalyptic tales with parallels to the Bible. The film Panic in Year Zero! (1962) was (without giving credit) based on Lot and Lot's Daughter. His short story "Adjustment", in which an "ordinary" man adjusts to a never-never land in which his wishes are fulfilled, and makes the environment adjust to him as well, has been reprinted several times.
Read more about Ward Moore: Biography
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“The higher, the more exalted the society, the greater is its culture and refinement, and the less does gossip prevail. People in such circles find too much of interest in the world of art and literature and science to discuss, without gloating over the shortcomings of their neighbors.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“Minds do not act together in public; they simply stick together; and when their private activities are resumed, they fly apart again.”
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)