George Garrett, at 78; versatile author, poet

GEORGE GARRETT (University of Virginia file)

WASHINGTON - George Garrett, the author of more than 30 books of fiction, poetry, biography, and criticism, including an acclaimed trilogy of historical novels set in Elizabethan England, died Monday at his home in Charlottesville, Va., of bladder cancer. He was 78.

Mr. Garrett retired in 2000 from the University of Virginia as the Henry Hoyns professor of creative writing. He earlier had directed the school's creative writing department.

In a multifaceted career, he was regarded by his admirers as a classic man of letters. He wrote poetry and short stories that were deceptively colloquial, deeply moralistic, and concerned with one's place in a corrupting world.

Mr. Garrett was poet laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2004 and the recipient in 1989 of the Ingersoll Foundation's T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing, which recognized him as "one of the most inventive and artistic writers of his generation."

He wrote across many genres, from a political drama set in modern Florida ("The Finished Man," 1961) to a Southern gothic tale of a revivalist preacher ("Do, Lord, Remember Me," 1965).

He wrote his Elizabethan trilogy - "Death of the Fox," "The Succession," and "Entered From the Sun" - over three decades, and he chose radically different forms of storytelling in what Richard Dillard, a Garrett specialist who teaches at Hollins College, called "his quest never to write the same book twice."

"Death of the Fox" (1971) provided Mr. Garrett with his only bestseller. He spent 13 years writing the book, originally part of his Princeton University doctoral thesis, about poet and adventurer Walter Raleigh. Its sweep and authority were widely praised, as were its vivid recreation of the period and its personalities.

"The Succession" (1983) focused on the ascension of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England after the death of Elizabeth I and was told through a variety of characters, including two runaway Catholic priests.

"Entered From the Sun" (1990) used the device of two detectives, an actor, and a spy, looking to solve the stabbing death of playwright Christopher Marlowe in 1593. Raleigh appears at the end, drawing the trilogy to a close.

Many profiles drew attention to Mr. Garrett's devotion to craft, but he was a notably good-humored man who treasured the "Golden Turkey" award bestowed on "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster," a cheapie Hollywood film he wrote as a lark in 1965.

He liked to joke that the film, also released as "Mars Invades Puerto Rico," was "the only movie I've ever seen that's greatly enhanced by regular commercial interruption."