De Voto, Bernard (Augustine) (1897–1955), a United States author. As a literary critic and social historian, he often considered the impact of the West and the frontier on American thinking. Across the Wide Missouri (awarded the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1948) is the second part of a trilogy including The Year of Decision: 1846 (1943) and The Course of Empire (1952).
De Voto was born in Ogden, Utah, on January 11, 1897. In 1920 he graduated from Harvard University, after serving in World War I. He taught English at Northwestern and Harvard universities, and was an editor of the Saturday Review of Literature (1936–38). From 1935 until his death he wrote a column in Harper's Magazine. He died in New York City on November 11, 1955.
His literary criticism includes Mark Twain's America (1932) and The Literary Fallacy (1944). The Crooked Mile (1924), We Accept With Pleasure (1934), and Mountain Time (1947) are novels.