Heinlein, Robert Anson MacDonald [key], 1907–88, American science-fiction writer, b. Butler, Mo. His best-known novel, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), concerns a young man who is raised by Martians and returns to earth. It became a cult classic during the 1960s. A writer of fast-paced and extremely inventive works, he also wrote the short stories in The Green Hills of Earth (1951) and other collections, and Double Star (1956), Starship Troopers (1959), The Door into Summer (1957), The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), The Cat Who Walks through Walls (1985), and other novels. Extremely influential, Heinlein's writings helped win respect for science fiction as literature.
See J. N. Schulman, The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana (1999); biography by W. H. Patterson, Jr. (2 vol., 2011–2014); study by H. B. Franklin (1980).
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