Ward Moore

Who was Ward Moore?

Ward Moore 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, 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. 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, about the purported survival of the State of Franklin; Caduceus Wild, about a medarchy, a nation governed by physicians.

Moore is also known for the two short stories "Lot" and "Lot's Daughter" which are postapocalyptic tales with parallels to the Bible. The film Panic in Year Zero! was 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.