Author and Oxford University don.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Stewart took his MA at Oriel College, Oxford, and then taught English at Leeds University, the University of Adelaide in South Australia, Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland, and finally Oxford University where he became emeritus in 1973. Stewart had a distinguished career both as a scholar and a novelist. He first began writing mystery novels in the 1930s, using the pseudonym Michael Innes, and over the next fifty years produced highly acclaimed literary biographies of Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling, as well as five other volumes of literary history and criticism; four volumes of short stories; twenty-two works of fiction under his real name; more than fifty novels as Michael Innes; numerous reviews for the Times Literary Supplement and other journals; a series of radio scripts and dramas; and an autobiography titled Michael Innes and Me: A Memoir.