DIED. Wallace Stegner, 84, author; of injuries sustained in a traffic accident three weeks ago; in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Stegner won a 1972 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Angle of Repose and a 1977 National Book Award for The Spectator Bird. He first received acclaim in the 1940s for works of both fiction and nonfiction. He enjoyed a late success with his 1987 novel Crossing to Safety. Long preoccupied with the American West, Stegner was admired for his subtle, lucid style and his persuasive skepticism of the frontier myth. From 1945 until his retirement in 1971, he taught writing and literature at Stanford University.