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Edgar Rice Burroughs
Born	(1875-09-01)September 1, 1875 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	March 19, 1950(1950-03-19) (aged 74) Encino, California, U.S.
Resting place	Tarzana, California, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Period	20th century
Genres	Adventure novel, Lost World, Sword and Planet, Planetary romance, Soft science fiction, Westerns
Notable work(s)	Tarzan series, Barsoom series
Influences Edwin Lester Linden Arnold, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells
Influenced Ray Bradbury, Leigh Brackett, Lin Carter, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert E. Howard, Philip José Farmer, Otis Adelbert Kline, A. Merritt, John Norman, Michael Moorcock, Carl Sagan, James Cameron
Signature

Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.

Biography[link]

Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois (he later lived for many years in the suburb of Oak Park), the fourth son of businessman and Civil War veteran Major George Tyler Burroughs (1833–1913) and his wife Mary Evaline (Zieger) Burroughs (1840–1920). His middle name is from his paternal grandmother, Mary Rice Burroughs (1802-ca. 1870).^[1][2][3]

Burroughs was educated at a number of local schools, and during the Chicago influenza epidemic in 1891, he spent a half year at his brother's ranch on the Raft River in Idaho. He then attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then the Michigan Military Academy. Graduating in 1895, and failing the entrance exam for the United States Military Academy (West Point), he ended up as an enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry in Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. After being diagnosed with a heart problem and thus found ineligible to serve, he was discharged in 1897.^[4]

Bookplate of Edgar Rice Burroughs showing Tarzan holding the planet Mars, surrounded by other characters from Burroughs' stories and symbols relating to his personal interests and career

Typsescript letter, with Tarzana Ranch letterhead, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Ruthven Deane, explaining the design and significance of his bookplate

Some seemingly unrelated short jobs followed. Some drifting and ranch work followed in Idaho. Then, Burroughs found work at his father's firm in 1899. He married childhood sweetheart Emma Hulbert in January 1900. In 1904 he left his job and found less regular work; some in Idaho, later in Chicago.^[5]

By 1911, after seven years of low wages, he was working as a pencil sharpener wholesaler and began to write fiction. By this time Burroughs and Emma had two children, Joan (1908–1972), who would later marry Tarzan film actor James Pierce, and Hulbert (1909–1991).^[6] During this period, he had copious spare time and he began reading many pulp fiction magazines. In 1929 he recalled thinking that

...if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.^[7]

Aiming his work at these pulp fiction magazines, Burroughs had his first story, "Under the Moons of Mars", serialized in All-Story Magazine in 1912^[8][9]

Burroughs soon took up writing full-time and by the time the run of Under the Moons of Mars had finished he had completed two novels, including Tarzan of the Apes, which was published from October 1912 and went on to become one of his most successful series. In 1913, Burroughs and Emma had their third and last child, John Coleman Burroughs (1913–1979).^{[citation needed]}

Burroughs also wrote popular science fiction and fantasy stories involving Earthly adventurers transported to various planets (notably Barsoom, Burroughs' fictional name for Mars, and Amtor, his fictional name for Venus), lost islands, and into the interior of the hollow earth in his Pellucidar stories, as well as westerns and historical romances. Along with All-Story, many of his stories were published in The Argosy.

Tarzan was a cultural sensation when introduced. Burroughs was determined to capitalize on Tarzan's popularity in every way possible. He planned to exploit Tarzan through several different media including a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. Experts in the field advised against this course of action, stating that the different media would just end up competing against each other. Burroughs went ahead, however, and proved the experts wrong—the public wanted Tarzan in whatever fashion he was offered. Tarzan remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day and is a cultural icon.

In either 1915 or 1919, Burroughs purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "Tarzana." The citizens of the community that sprang up around the ranch voted to adopt that name when their community, Tarzana, California was formed in 1927. http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/sd/communityprofiles/California/Tarzana_CA.pdf Also the unincorporated community of Tarzan, Texas, was formally named in 1927 when the US Postal Service accepted the name,^[10] reputedly coming from the popularity of the first (silent) Tarzan of the Apes film, starring Elmo Lincoln, and an early "Tarzan" comic strip.

In 1923 Burroughs set up his own company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and began printing his own books through the 1930s.

Burroughs divorced Emma in 1934 and married the former actress Florence Gilbert Dearholt in 1935, the former wife of his friend, Ashton Dearholt, and Burroughs adopted the Dearholts' two children. This couple divorced in 1942.^[11]

At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Burroughs was a resident of Hawaii and, despite being in his late sixties, he applied for permission to become a war correspondent. This permission was granted, and so he became one of the oldest war correspondents for the U.S. during World War II. After the war ended, Burroughs moved back to Encino, California, where, after many health problems, he died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950, having written almost seventy novels.^[12]

Selected bibliography[link]

[edit] Barsoom series

• A Princess of Mars (1912)
• The Gods of Mars (1914)
• The Warlord of Mars (1918)
• Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920)
• The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
• The Master Mind of Mars (1928)
• A Fighting Man of Mars (1931)
• Swords of Mars (1936)
• Synthetic Men of Mars (1940)
• Llana of Gathol (1948)
• John Carter of Mars (1964)
  • "John Carter and the Giant of Mars" (1940) Actually written by Burroughs's son, John Coleman Burroughs.
  • "Skeleton Men of Jupiter" (1942)

[edit] Tarzan series

• Tarzan of the Apes (1912)
• The Return of Tarzan (1913)
• The Beasts of Tarzan (1914)
• The Son of Tarzan (1914)
• Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1916)
• Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1916, 1917)
• Tarzan the Untamed (1919, 1921)
• Tarzan the Terrible (1921)
• Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1922, 1923)
• Tarzan and the Ant Men (1924)
• Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1927, 1928)
• Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1928)
• Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)
• Tarzan the Invincible (1930–1931.)
• Tarzan Triumphant (1931)
• Tarzan and the City of Gold (1932)
• Tarzan and the Lion Man (1933, 1934)
• Tarzan and the Leopard Men (1935)
• Tarzan's Quest (1935, 1936)
• Tarzan the Magnificent (1936, 1937)
• Tarzan and the Forbidden City (1938)
• Tarzan and the Foreign Legion (1947)
• Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins (1963, for younger readers)
• Tarzan and the Madman (1964)
• Tarzan and the Castaways (1965)
• Tarzan: the Lost Adventure (with Joe R. Lansdale) (1995)

[edit] Pellucidar series

• At the Earth's Core (1914)
• Pellucidar (1923)
• Tanar of Pellucidar (1928)
• Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)
• Back to the Stone Age (1937)
• Land of Terror (1944)
• Savage Pellucidar (1963)

[edit] Venus series

• Pirates of Venus (1934)
• Lost on Venus (1935)
• Carson of Venus (1939)
• Escape on Venus (1946)
• The Wizard of Venus (1970)

[edit] Caspak series

• The Land That Time Forgot (1918)
• The People That Time Forgot (1918)
• Out of Time’s Abyss (1918)

[edit] Moon series

• The Moon Maid (1926) (aka The Moon Men)
  • Part I: The Moon Maid
  • Part II: The Moon Men
  • Part III: The Red Hawk

These three texts have been published by various houses in one or two volumes. Adding to the confusion, some editions have the original (significantly longer) introduction to Part I from the first publication as a magazine serial, and others have the shorter version from the first book publication, which included all three parts under the title The Moon Maid.^[13]

[edit] Mucker series

• The Mucker (1914)
• The Return of the Mucker (1916)
• The Oakdale Affair (1917)

Other science fiction[link]

• Beyond the Farthest Star (1941)
• The Lost Continent (1916) (aka Beyond Thirty)
• The Monster Men (1929)
• The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw (1937)

Jungle adventure novels[link]

• The Man-Eater (1915)
• The Cave Girl (1925)
• The Eternal Lover (1925) (aka The Eternal Savage)
• Jungle Girl (1932) (aka Land of the Hidden Men)
• The Lad and the Lion (1938)

Western novels[link]

• Apache Devil (1933)
• The Bandit of Hell's Bend (1926)
• The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County (1940)
• The War Chief (1927)

Historical novels[link]

• I am a Barbarian (1967)
• The Outlaw of Torn (1927)

Other works[link]

• The Efficiency Expert (1921)
• Forgotten Tales of Love and Murder (2001)
• The Girl from Farris's (1916)
• The Girl from Hollywood (1923)
• The Mad King (1926)
• Marcia of the Doorstep (1999)
• Minidoka: 937th Earl of One Mile Series M (1998)
• Pirate Blood (1970)
• The Rider (1937)
• You Lucky Girl! (1999)

Popular culture[link]

• In the video game Jurassic Park: Trespasser there is a statue of E. R. Burroughs, possibly as a reference to his novel The Land That Time Forgot.

• Burroughs is mentioned in the classic 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird in the first chapter: " Routine contentment was: improving our treehouse that rested between giant twin chinaberry trees in the back yard, fussing, running through our list of dramas based on the works of Oliver Optic, Victor Appleton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs."

• In Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven, several different fictional Martian races appear, including a people who are a combination of the Red Martians of Edgar Rice Burroughs and those by Ray Bradbury, and another who are unmistakably Burroughs' big fierce Green Martians.

• In the Mars Trilogy novels of Kim Stanley Robinson the original capital city on Mars is named Burroughs as a sort of tribute. It is later flooded.

• Season 1, Episode 29 of Disney's The Legend of Tarzan animated series, Tarzan and the Mysterious Visitor, illustrates Burroughs as a struggling writer who travels to Africa after learning about Tarzan in the hopes of getting inspiration for a new novel. (Notably, though, the real Burroughs never set foot in Africa.) The character is only referred to as "Ed" throughout the episode and his true identity isn't revealed until his name is shown on his book.

• The 1980 novel The Number of the Beast, by Robert A. Heinlein featured characters named Zebediah John Carter, Jacob Burroughs, and Dejah Thoris Burroughs in homage to Burroughs. The main characters travel to alternate universes, including Barsoom, Oz and Wonderland. The protagonist of Heinlein's Glory Road also muses on Barsoom.

• The Marvel Comics book Excalibur created by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis paid a tribute to the John Carter stories in issue #16 and 17. The story was billed on the cover of issue #16 as "Kurt Wagner Warlord of ?". The series added a further tribute with issue #60 and the story "Braddock of the jungle".

• In The Alternate Martians (Ace, 1965) A. Bertram Chandler explored a fictional Mars curiously combining characters, including Deliah (for Dejah) Thoris and Tars Tarkas, and characteristics of Burroughs's Barsoom with the malevolent Martians of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.

• In Frank Frazetta's Creatures published by the Frazetta Comics imprint at Image Burroughs appears as a member of a group of supernatural investigators led by former US president Theodore Roosevelt.

• In Rocky II, Rocky reads "The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County" to Adrian while she is in a coma.

• In Richard Bachman's short story "The Long Walk" the character named Olson introduces himself to Gary Barkovitch and says, "I'm John Carter", "My home is Barsoom, Mars."

• In the TV series ER, the character played by Noah Wyle is usually called simply Carter, but his full name is John Carter. The creator of ER, Michael Crichton, has cited the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs as an early influence, thus this homage.^{[citation needed]}

• In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, John Carter appears twice. He teams up with H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain, H. P. Lovecraft's Randolph Carter, and Wells' Time Traveller on a strange journey in the supplemental Allan and the Sundered Veil. Later, he is seen leading the Green Martians in a battle against Wells' Martian invaders.

• In the 2012 Disney film John Carter, Daryl Sabara portrays Burroughs as a young man. In the film (as in the book) Edgar is the nephew of John Carter who after passing left him his belongings including a journal with his adventures on Mars.

Books on Edgar Rice Burroughs[link]

• Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Richard A. Lupoff
• Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by John Taliaferro
• Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs by the Rev. Henry Hardy Heins
• Tarzan Alive by Philip Jose Farmer
• Burroughs's Science Fiction by Robert R. Kudlay and Joan Leiby
• Tarzan and Tradition and Edgar Rice Burroughs by Erling B. Holtsmark
• Edgar Rice Burroughs by Irwin Porges
• Edgar Rice Burroughs by Robert B. Zeuschner
• The Burroughs Cyclopædia ed. by Clark A. Brady
• A Guide to Barsoom by John Flint Roy

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	United States Army portal

• Mars in fiction
• Otis Adelbert Kline
• Sword and planet
• John Carter film
• Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
• Several electronic books (eBooks) written by Edgar Rice Burroughs are available from The Gutenberg Project for free. These books are listed at Edgar Rice Burroughs at The Gutenberg Project

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Edgar Rice Burroughs biography at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame

Bibliography

• Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs at Project Gutenberg Australia
• Bibliography on SciFan
• LibriVox Audiobook Recordings
• Edgar Rice Burroughs at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• [[1]]=UK 1st editions]]

Other

• Tarzan.com
• Tarzan.org

Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., also, E. E. Smith, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, and (to family) Ted (May 2, 1890 – August 31, 1965) was a food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and early science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others. He is sometimes referred to as the father of space opera.

Biography[link]

Family and education[link]

Edward Elmer Smith was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on May 2, 1890 to Fred Jay Smith and Caroline Mills Smith, both staunch Presbyterians of British ancestry.^[1] His mother was a teacher born in Michigan in February 1855; his father was a sailor, born in Maine in January 1855 to an English father.^[2] They moved to Spokane, Washington the winter after Edward Elmer was born,^[3] where Mr. Smith was working as a contractor in 1900.^[2] In 1902 the family moved to Seneaquoteen,^[4] near the Pend Oreille River, in Kootenai County, Idaho.^[5] He had four siblings, Rachel M. born September 1882, Daniel M. born January 1884, Mary Elizabeth born February 1886 (all of whom were born in Michigan), and Walter E. born July 1891 in Washington.^[2] In 1910, Fred and Caroline Smith and their son Walter were living in the Markham Precinct of Bonner County, Idaho; Fred is listed in census records as a farmer.^[6]

Smith worked primarily as a manual laborer until he injured his wrist, at the age of 19, while escaping from a fire. He attended the University of Idaho. He was installed in the 1984 Class of the University of Idaho Alumni Hall of Fame.^[7] He entered its prep school in 1907, and graduated with two degrees in Chemical Engineering in 1914. He was president of the Chemistry Club, the Chess Club, and the Mandolin and Guitar Club, and captain of the Drill and Rifle Team; he also sang the bass lead in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.^[8] His undergraduate thesis was Some Clays of Idaho, co-written with classmate Chester Fowler Smith, who died in California of tuberculosis the following year, after taking a teaching fellowship at Berkeley.^[9] It is not known whether the two were related.

On October 5, 1915, in Boise, Idaho^[10] he married Jeanne Craig MacDougall, the sister of his college roommate, Allen Scott (Scotty) MacDougall.^[11] (Her sister was named Clarissa MacLean MacDougall; the heroine of the Lensman novels would later be named Clarissa MacDougall.) Jeanne MacDougall was born in Glasgow, Scotland; her parents were Donald Scott MacDougall, a violinist, and Jessica Craig MacLean. Her father had moved to Boise, Idaho when the children were young, and later sent for his family; he died while they were en route in 1905. Jeanne's mother, who remarried businessman and retired politician John F. Kessler in 1914^[12] worked at, and later owned, a boarding house on Ridenbaugh Street.

The Smiths had three children:

• Roderick N., born June 3, 1918 in the District of Columbia (employed as a design engineer at Lockheed Aircraft).
• Verna Jean (later Verna Smith Trestrail), born August 25, 1920 in Michigan, his literary executor until her death in 1994. (Her son Kim Trestrail is now the executor.^[13]) Robert A. Heinlein in part dedicated his 1982 novel Friday to Verna.^[14]
• Clarissa M. (later Clarissa Wilcox), born December 13, 1921 in Michigan.^[15]

[edit] Early chemical career and the beginning of Skylark

After college, Smith was a junior chemist for the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., developing standards for butter and for oysters.^[16] Smith may have served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I, but in what capacity is not known^[17] Smith apparently requested exemption from the draft, partly because his wife was solely dependent on him, and partly perhaps because of his service as a civilian chemist in the war effort.^[18]

First publication of Skylark Three, Amazing Stories, August 1930

One evening in 1915, the Smiths were visiting a former classmate from the University of Idaho, Dr. Carl Garby, who had also moved to Washington, D.C. He lived near the Smiths in the Seaton Place Apartments in Washington with his wife, Lee Hawkins Garby. A long discussion about journeys into outer space ensued. It was suggested to Smith that he should write down his ideas and speculations as a story about interstellar travel. Although he was interested, Smith thought that some amount of romantic elements would be required as well—a task that he found himself uncomfortable with.

Mrs. Garby then made an offer to take care of the love interest and the romantic dialogue, and Smith decided to give it a try. The sources of inspirations for the main characters in the novel were themselves. The "Seatons" were based on the Smiths while the "Cranes" were drawn from the Garbys.^[19] About one-third of The Skylark of Space was completed by the end of 1916, when Smith and Garby gradually abandoned work on it.

Smith earned his master's degree in chemistry from the George Washington University in 1917, studying under Dr. Charles E. Munroe.^[4][20][21] Smith completed his Ph.D. in chemical engineering,^[16] in 1918,^[22] emphasizing food engineering with a thesis entitled The effect of bleaching with oxides of nitrogen upon the baking quality and commercial value of wheat flour, which was published in 1919.^[23] Warner and Fleischer instead give the thesis title as The Effect of the Oxides of Nitrogen upon the Carotin Molecule — C40H56, which is difficult to explain. Sam Moskowitz instead gives the date of the degree as 1919,^[16] which may reflect the differences between the thesis submission date, its defense date, and the degree certification date.

[edit] Writing Skylark

In 1919 Dr. Smith was hired as chief chemist for F. W. Stock & Sons of Hillsdale, Michigan, at one time the largest family-owned mill east of the Mississippi,^[24] working on doughnut mixes.^[4]

Late in 1919, after moving to Michigan, one evening Smith was baby-sitting (presumably for Roderick) while his wife attended a movie; he resumed work on The Skylark of Space, finishing it in the spring of 1920.^[25][26] He submitted it to many book publishers and magazines, spending more in postage than he would eventually receive for its publication. He received an encouraging rejection letter from Bob Davis, editor of Argosy, in 1922, saying that he liked the novel personally, but that it was too far out for his readers.^[27] (According to Warner, but no other source, Dr. Smith began work on the sequel, Skylark III, before the first book was accepted.) Finally, upon seeing the April 1927 issue of Amazing Stories, he submitted it to the magazine; it was accepted, initially for $75, later raised to $125.^[28] It was published in the August–October 1928 issues. It was such a success that managing editor T. O'Conor Sloane requested a sequel before the second installment had been published.^[29]

Mrs. Garby was not interested in collaborating further, so Dr. Smith began work on Skylark Three on his own.^[30] It was published in the August through October 1930 issues of Amazing. (In 1930 the Smiths were living in Michigan, at 33 Rippon Avenue in Hillsdale.^[31]) This was as far as he had planned to take the Skylark series; it was praised in Amazing's letter column,^[32] and he was paid 3/4¢ per word, surpassing Amazing's previous record of half a cent.^[33]

[edit] The early 1930s: between Skylark and Lensman

Dr. Smith then began work on what he intended as a new series, starting with Spacehounds of IPC,^[34] which he finished in the autumn of 1930.^[35] In this novel he took pains to avoid the scientific impossibilities which had bothered some readers of the Skylark novels.^[36] Even in 1938, after he had written Galactic Patrol, Dr. Smith considered it his finest work;^[35] he later said of it, "This was really scientific fiction; not, like the Skylarks, pseudo-science";^[37] and even at the end of his career he considered it his only work of true science fiction.^[38] It was published in the July through September 1931 issues of Amazing, but with unauthorized changes by Sloane.^[39] Fan letters in the magazine complained about the novel's containment within the solar system, and Sloane sided with the readers. So when Harry Bates, editor of Astounding Stories, offered Smith 2¢/word—payable on publication—for his next story, he agreed; this meant that it could not be a sequel to Spacehounds.^[33]

This book would be Triplanetary, "in which scientific detail would not be bothered about, and in which his imagination would run riot."^[35] Indeed, characters within the story point out its psychological^[40] and scientific^[41] implausibilities, and sometimes even seem to suggest self-parody.^[42] At other times they are conspicuously silent about obvious implausibilities.^[43][44] The January 1933 issue of Astounding announced that Triplanetary would appear in the March issue, and that issue's cover illustrated a scene from the story, but Astounding's financial difficulties prevented the story from appearing.^[45] Dr. Smith then submitted the manuscript to Wonder Stories, whose editor, Charles D. Hornig, rejected it, later boasting about the rejection in a fanzine.^[46] He finally submitted it to Amazing, which published it beginning in January 1934, but for only half a cent a word. Shortly after it was accepted, F. Orlin Tremaine, the new editor of the revived Astounding, offered one cent a word for Triplanetary; when he learned that he was too late, he suggested a third Skylark novel instead.^[47]

In the winter of 1933-4 Dr. Smith worked on The Skylark of Valeron, but he felt that the story was getting out of control; he sent his first draft to Tremaine, with a distraught note asking for suggestions. Tremaine accepted the rough draft for $850, and announced it in the June 1934 issue, with a full-page editorial and a three-quarter page advertisement. The novel was published in the August 1934 through February 1935 issues. Astounding's circulation rose by 10,000 for the first issue, and its two main competitors, Amazing and Wonder Stories fell into financial difficulties, both skipping issues within a year. ^[48]

[edit] The Lensman series

In January 1936, a time period where he was already an established science fiction writer, he took a job for salary plus profit-sharing, as a food technologist (a cereal chemist) at the Dawn Doughnut Company of Jackson, Michigan.^[49] This initially entailed almost a year's worth of eighteen-hour days and seven-day workweeks. Individuals who knew Dr. Smith confirmed that he had a role in developing mixes for doughnuts and other pastries, but the contention that he developed the first process for making powdered sugar adhere to doughnuts cannot be substantiated.^[50] Dr. Smith was reportedly dislocated from his job at Dawn Doughnuts due to pre-war rationing in early 1940.^[51]

Dr. Smith had been contemplating writing a "space-police novel" since early 1927;^[52] once he had "the Lensmen's universe fairly well set up", he reviewed his science fiction collection for "cops-and-robbers" stories. He cites Clinton Constantinescue's "War of the Universe" as a negative example, and Starzl and Williamson as positive ones.^[53] Tremaine responded extremely positively to a brief description of the idea.^[54]

Once Dawn Doughnuts became profitable in late 1936, Dr. Smith wrote an eighty-five page outline for what became the four core Lensman novels; in early 1937 Tremaine committed to buying them.^[55] Segmenting the story into four novels required considerable effort to avoid dangling loose ends; Dr. Smith cites Edgar Rice Burroughs as a negative example.^[54] After the outline was complete, he wrote a more detailed outline of Galactic Patrol, plus a detailed graph of its structure, with "peaks of emotional intensity and the valleys of characterization and background material." He notes, however, that he was never able to follow any of his outlines at all closely, as the "characters get away from me and do exactly as they damn please."^[56] After completing the rough draft of Galactic Patrol, he wrote the concluding chapter of the last book in the series, Children of the Lens.^[57] Galactic Patrol was published in the September 1937 through February 1938 issues of Astounding; unlike the revised book edition, it was not set in the same universe as Triplanetary.^[58]

Gray Lensman, the second book in the series, appeared in Astounding's October 1939 through January 1940 issues. (Note that the frequent British spelling "grey" is simply a recurrent mistake, starting with the cover of the first installment; Moskowitz's usage, "The Grey Lensman", is even harder to justify.^[59]) Gray Lensman (and its cover illustration) was extremely well received. Campbell's editorial in the December issue suggested that the October issue was the best issue of Astounding ever, and Gray Lensman was first place in the Analytical Laboratory statistics "by a lightyear", with three runners-up in a distant tie for third place.^[60] The cover was also praised by readers in Brass Tacks, and Campbell noted, "We got a letter from E. E. Smith saying he and Hubert Rogers agreed on how Kinnison looked."^[61]

Dr. Smith was the guest of honor at Chicon I, the second World Science Fiction Convention, held in Chicago over Labor Day weekend 1940,^[62] giving a speech on the importance of science fiction fandom entitled "What Does This Convention Mean?"^[63] He attended the convention's masquerade as C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith, and met fans living near him in Michigan, who would later form the Galactic Roamers, which previewed and advised him on his future work.^[64]

Dr. Smith worked for the US Army between 1941 and 1945. An extended segment in the novel version of Triplanetary, set during World War II, suggests intimate familiarity with explosives and munitions manufacturing. Some biographers cite as fact that, just as Smith's protagonist in this segment lost his job over failure to approve sub-standard munitions, Smith did as well. Smith began work for the J. W. Allen Company (a manufacturer of doughnut and frosting mixes) in 1946 and worked for them until his professional retirement in 1957.^[51]

Retirement and late writing[link]

After Dr. Smith retired, he and his wife lived in Clearwater, Florida,^[20] in the fall and winter, driving the smaller of their two trailers to Seaside, Oregon, each April, often stopping at science fiction conventions on the way. (Dr. Smith did not like to fly.)^[65] In 1963, he was presented the inaugural First Fandom Hall of Fame award at the 21st World Science Fiction Convention in Washington, D.C.^[20] Some of his biography is captured in an essay by Robert A. Heinlein, which was reprinted in the collection Expanded Universe in 1980. There is a more detailed, although allegedly^[66] error-ridden, biography in Sam Moskowitz's Seekers of Tomorrow.

Robert A. Heinlein and Dr. Smith were friends. (Heinlein dedicated his 1958 novel Methuselah's Children "To Edward E. Smith, Ph.D."^[67]) Heinlein reported that E. E. Smith perhaps took his "unrealistic" heroes from life, citing as an example the extreme competence of the hero of Spacehounds of IPC. He reported that E. E. Smith was a large, blond, athletic, very intelligent, very gallant man, married to a remarkably beautiful, intelligent red-haired woman named MacDougal (thus perhaps the prototypes of 'Kimball Kinnison' and 'Clarissa MacDougal'). In Heinlein's essay, he reports that he began to suspect Smith might be a sort of "superman" when he asked Dr. Smith for help in purchasing a car. Smith tested the car by driving it on a back road at illegally high speeds with their heads pressed tightly against the roof columns to listen for chassis squeaks by bone conduction—a process apparently improvised on the spot.

In his non-series novels written after his professional retirement, Galaxy Primes, Subspace Explorers, and Subspace Encounter, E. E. Smith explores themes of telepathy and other mental abilities collectively called "psionics", and of the conflict between libertarian and socialistic/communistic influences in the colonization of other planets.

Lord Tedric[link]

Dr. Smith wrote a novelette entitled "Lord Tedric", published in Other Worlds in 1952, and which was almost completely forgotten.

Much later, 13 years after Dr. Smith's death, Gordon Eklund published another novel of the same name about the same fictional character, introducing it as "a new series conceived by E. E. 'Doc' Smith". Eklund later went on to publish the other novels in the series, one or two under the pseudonym "E. E. 'Doc' Smith" or "E. E. Smith". The protagonist possesses similar heroic qualities common to the heroes in Dr. Smith's original novels and can communicate with an extra-dimensional race of beings known as The Scientists, whose archenemy is Fra Villion, a mysterious character described as a dark knight, skilled in whip-sword combat, and evil genius behind the creation of a planetoid-sized "iron sphere" armed with a weapon capable of destroying planets. As a result, Dr. Smith is believed by many to be the unacknowledged progenitor of themes that would appear in Star Wars.

Critical opinion[link]

Smith's novels are generally considered to be the classic space operas,^[68] and he is sometimes called the "first nova" of twentieth century science fiction.^[69]

Dr. Smith expressed a preference for inventing fictional technologies that were not strictly impossible (so far as the science of the day was aware) but highly unlikely: "the more highly improbable a concept is—short of being contrary to mathematics whose fundamental operations involve no neglect of infinitesimals—the better I like it" was his phrase.^[70]

[edit] Extending the Lensman universe

Vortex Blasters (also known as Masters of the Vortex) is set in the same universe as the Lensman novels. It is an extension to the main storyline which takes place between Second Stage Lensmen and Children of the Lens, and introduces a different type of psionics from that used by the Lensmen. Spacehounds of IPC is not a part of the series, despite occasional erroneous statements to the contrary. (It is listed as a novel in the series in some paperback editions of the 1970s.)

Robert A. Heinlein reported that Smith had planned a seventh Lensman novel, set after the events described in Children of the Lens, which was unpublishable at that time (the early 1960s).^[71] Smith told Heinlein that the new novel proceeded inexorably from unresolved matters in Children, a statement easily supported by a careful reading of Children. Careful searches by people who knew Smith well (including Frederik Pohl, Smith's editor, and Verna Smith Trestrail, Smith's daughter) have failed to locate any material related to such a story.^{[citation needed]} Smith apparently never wrote any of it down.

On 14 July 1965, barely a month before his death, Smith gave written permission to William B. Ellern to continue the Lensman series, which led to the publishing of "Moon Prospector" in 1965 and New Lensman in 1976. Smith's long-time friend, Dave Kyle, wrote three authorized added novels in the Lensman series that provided background about the major non-human Lensmen.

Influence on science and the military[link]

Smith was widely read by scientists and engineers from the 1930s into the 1970s. Literary precursors of ideas which arguably entered the military-scientific complex include SDI (Triplanetary), stealth (Gray Lensman), the OODA Loop, C3-based warfare, and the AWACS (Gray Lensman).

An influence that is inarguable was described in an 11 June 1947 letter^[72] to Doc from John W. Campbell (the editor of Astounding magazine, where much of the Lensman series was originally published). In it, Campbell relayed Captain Cal Laning's^[73] acknowledgment that he had used Smith's ideas for displaying the battlespace situation (called the "tank" in the stories) in the design of the United States Navy's ships' Combat Information Centers. "The entire set-up was taken specifically, directly, and consciously from the Directrix. In your story, you reached the situation the Navy was in—more communication channels than integration techniques to handle it. You proposed such an integrating technique and proved how advantageous it could be. You, sir, were 100% right. As the Japanese Navy—not the hypothetical Boskonian fleet—learned at an appalling cost."

One underlying theme of the later Lensman novels was the difficulty in maintaining military secrecy—as advanced capabilities are revealed, the opposing side can often duplicate them. This point was also discussed extensively by John Campbell in his letter to Doc.^[74] Also in the later Lensman novels, and particular after the "Battle of Klovia" broke the Boskonian's power base at the end of Second Stage Lensmen, the Boskonian forces and particularly Kandron of Onlo reverted to terroristic tactics to attempt to demoralize Civilization, thus providing an early literary glimpse into this modern problem of both law enforcement and military response. The use of "Vee-two" gas by the pirates attacking the Hyperion in Triplanetary (in both magazine and book appearances) also suggests anticipation of the terrorist uses of poison gases.

The beginning of the story the Skylark of Space describes in relative detail the protagonists research into separation of platinum group residues, subsequent experiments involving electrolysis and the discovery of a process evocative of cold fusion (over 50 years before Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann). He describes a nuclear process yielding large amounts of energy and producing only negligible radioactive waste—which then goes on to form the basis of the adventures in the Skylark books. Smith's general description of the process of discovery is highly evocative of Röntgen's descriptions of his discovery of the X-ray.

Another theme of the Skylark novels involves precursors of modern information technology. The humanoid aliens encountered in the first novel have developed a primitive technology called the "mechanical educator", which allows direct conversion of brain waves into intelligible thought for transmission to others or for electrical storage. By the third novel in the series, Skylark of Valeron, this technology has grown into an "Electronic Brain" which is capable of computation on all "bands" of energy—electromagnetism, gravity, and "tachyonic" energy and radiation bands included. This is itself derived from a discussion of reductionist atomic theory in the second novel, Skylark Three, which brings to mind modern quark and sub-quark theories of elementary particle physics.

Literary influences on Smith's writing[link]

In his 1947 essay "The Epic of Space", Smith listed (by last name only) authors he enjoyed reading: John W. Campbell, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert A. Heinlein, Murray Leinster, H. P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt (specifically The Ship of Ishtar, The Moon Pool, The Snake Mother, and Dwellers in the Mirage, as well as the character John Kenton), C.L. Moore (specifically Jirel of Joiry), Roman Frederick Starzl, John Taine, A.E. van Vogt, Stanley G. Weinbaum (specifically Tweerl^[75]), and Jack Williamson. In a passage on his preparation for writing the Lensman novels, he notes that Clinton Constantinescu's "War of the Universe" was not a masterpiece,^[76] but says that Starzl and Williamson were masters; this suggests that Starzl's Interplanetary Flying Patrol may have been an influence on Smith's Triplanetary Patrol, later the Galactic Patrol. The feeding of the Overlords of Delgon upon the life-force of their victims at the end of chapter five of Galactic Patrol seems a clear allusion to chapter twenty-nine of The Moon Pool; Merritt's account of the Taithu and the power of love in chapters twenty-nine and thirty-four also bear some resemblance to the end of Children of the Lens.^{[citation needed]} Smith also mentions Edgar Rice Burroughs, complaining about loose ends at the end of one of his novels.

Smith acknowledges the help of the Galactic Roamers writers' workshop, plus E. Everett Evans, Ed Counts, an unnamed aeronautical engineer, Dr. James Enright, and Dr. Richard W. Dodson. Smith's daughter, Verna, lists the following authors as visitors to the Smith household in her youth: Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Heinlein, Dave Kyle, Bob Tucker, Williamson, Frederik Pohl, Merritt, and the Galactic Roamers.^{[citation needed]} Smith cites Bigelow's Theoretical Chemistry–Fundamentals as a justification for the possibility of the inertialess drive.^{[citation needed]} There is also an extended reference to Rudyard Kipling's "Ballad of Boh Da Thon" in Gray Lensman (chapter 22, "Regeneration," in a conversation between Kinnison and MacDougall).

Sam Moskowitz's biographical essay on Smith in Seekers of Tomorrow states that he regularly read Argosy magazine, and everything by H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Moskowitz also notes that Smith's "reading enthusiasms included poetry, philosophy, ancient and medieval history, and all of English literature."^[77] (Smith's grandson notes that he spoke, and sang, German.^[78]) The influence of these is not readily apparent, except in the Roman section of Triplanetary, and in the impeccable but convoluted grammar of Smith's narration. Some influence of nineteenth century philosophy of language may be detectable in the account in Galactic Patrol of the Lens of Arisia as a universal translator, which is reminiscent of Frege's strong realism about Sinn, that is, thought or sense.

Both Moskowitz and Smith's daughter Verna Smith Trestrail report that Smith had a troubled relationship with John Campbell, the editor of Astounding.^{[citation needed]} It is noteworthy that Smith's most successful works were published under Campbell, but the degree of influence is uncertain. The original outline for the Lensman series had been accepted by F. Orlin Tremaine,^[57] and Smith angered Campbell by showing loyalty to Tremaine at his new magazine, Comet, when he sold him "The Vortex Blaster" in 1941.^[79] Campbell's announcement of Children of the Lens, in 1947, was less than enthusiastic.^[80] Campbell later said that he published it only reluctantly,^[81] though he praised it privately,^[82] and bought little from Smith thereafter.

Derivative works and influence on popular culture[link]

• Randall Garrett wrote a parody entitled Backstage Lensman which Dr. Smith reportedly enjoyed. Harry Harrison also parodied Smith's work in the novel, Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers.
• Garrett also included a reference to Dr. Smith in his Lord Darcy novels; the badge of the Royal Messengers resembles the Lens, and the spell to activate one was devised by a wizard named Dr Edward Elmer.
• Sir Arthur C. Clarke's space battle in Earthlight was based on the attack on the Mardonalian fortress in chapter seven of Skylark Three.^[83]
• Steve 'Slug' Russell wrote one of the first computer games, Spacewar!, with inspiration from the space battles from the Lensman series.
• The GURPS role-playing game includes a worldbook based on the Lensman series.
• There is a Japanese Lensman anime, but it is more an imitation of Star Wars than a translation of the Lensman novels. Efforts to print translations of the associated manga in the United States in the early 1990s without payment of royalties to the Smith family were successfully blocked in court by Verna Smith Trestrail with the help of several California science fiction authors and fans.
• In his biography, George Lucas reveals that the Lensman novels were a major influence on his youth. J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, also has acknowledged the influence of the Lensman books.^[84][85]
• Superman-creator Jerry Siegel was impressed, at an early age, with the optimistic vision of the future presented in Skylark of Space.^[86]
• Two members of the Green Lantern Corps are named Arisia and Eddore.
• Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Universal Studios are in negotiation with the Smith estate for an 18-month film rights option on the series.^[87]

Fictional appearances[link]

Doc himself appears as a character in the 2006 novel The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. The novel describes friendship and rivalry among pulp writers of the 1930s. He also appears as "Lensman Ted Smith" in the 1980 novel The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein.

Bibliography[link]

Series[link]

Lensman^[88]

1. Triplanetary (Amazing Stories Jan–Apr 1934, Fantasy Press 1948)^[89]
2. First Lensman (Fantasy Press 1950)
3. Galactic Patrol (Astounding Stories Sep 1937–Feb 1938, Fantasy Press 1950)
4. Gray Lensman (Astounding Stories Oct 1939–Jan 1940, Fantasy Press 1951)
5. Second Stage Lensmen (Astounding Stories Nov 1941–Feb 1942, Fantasy Press 1953)
6. The Vortex Blaster, also known as Masters of the Vortex ("The Vortex Blaster", Comet Stories July 1941, "Storm Cloud on Deka", Astonishing Stories June 1942, "The Vortex Blaster Makes War", Astonishing Stories Oct 1942. Revised and expanded book version Gnome Press 1960)
7. Children of the Lens (Astounding Stories Nov 1947–Feb 1948, Fantasy Press 1954)

Skylark

1. The Skylark of Space (written 1915–1920 with Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby, Amazing Stories Aug–Oct 1928, Buffalo Book Co. 1946. Paperback edition, heavily revised and without the co-author credit, Pyramid Books 1958)
2. Skylark Three (Amazing Stories Aug–Oct 1930, Fantasy Press 1948)
3. Skylark of Valeron (Astounding Stories Aug 1934–Feb 1935, Fantasy Press 1949)
4. Skylark DuQuesne (Worlds of If Jun–Oct 1965, Pyramid Books 1966)

Subspace

1. Subspace Explorers (Canaveral Press 1965, Ace 1968; the first 30 pages of the book appeared in Astounding Jul 1960)
2. Subspace Encounter (1983)

Family D'Alembert (with Stephen Goldin—in fact only parts of the first book are by Smith, the rest is by Goldin based on Smith's novella)

1. Imperial Stars (1976)
2. Stranglers' Moon (1976)
3. The Clockwork Traitor (1976)
4. Getaway World (1977)
5. Appointment at Bloodstar, also known as The Bloodstar Conspiracy (1978)
6. The Purity Plot (1978)
7. Planet of Treachery (1981)
8. Eclipsing Binaries (1983)
9. The Omicron Invasion (1984)
10. Revolt of the Galaxy (1985)

Lord Tedric (by Gordon Eklund based on an EES novella)

1. Lord Tedric (1978)
2. The Space Pirates (1979)
3. Black Knight of the Iron Sphere (1979)
4. Alien Realms (1980)

Non-series novels and collections[link]

• Spacehounds of IPC (Amazing Stories Jul–Sep 1931, Fantasy Press 1947, Ace 1966)
• The Galaxy Primes (Amazing Stories Mar–May 1959, Ace 1965. Dr. Smith expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the editing of this novel.)
• Masters of Space (1976) (with E. Everett Evans)
• Edward E. Smith (2001). Have Trenchcoat — Will Travel, and Others. Advent. ISBN 0-911682-33-3. 

Non-fiction[link]

• Some Clays of Idaho, (with Chester Fowler Smith) undergraduate thesis, University of Idaho, 1914.^[90]
• The effect of bleaching with oxides of nitrogen upon the baking quality and commercial value of wheat flour, Ph.D. thesis, George Washington University, 1919, approximately 100 pp.^[91]
• "A study of some of the chemical changes which occur in oysters during their preparation for market", Bureau of Chemistry, U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 740, 1919, 24 pp.^[92]
• "Viscosity and Baking Quality", Cereal Chemistry 2, 178-89, 1925.^[93]
• "Report of the Subcommittee on Hydrogen-Ion Concentration with Special Reference to the Effect of Flour Bleach", Cereal Chemistry 9, 424–8, 1932.^[94]
• "Catastrophe" (Astounding Science Fiction May 1938).
• Worldcon Guest of Honor Speech, originally presented at Chicon I on September 1, 1940. To be published in Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches, edited by Mike Resnick and Joe Siclari, ISFiC Press, August 23, 2006.
• "The Epic of Space" in Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing, edited by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach (Fantasy Press 1947; includes a biographical sketch).
• Introduction to Man of Many Minds by E. Everett Evans (Fantasy Press 1953).

Secondary sources[link]

• Sean Barrett (1994, revised 2002). GURPS Lensman. Steve Jackson Games. ISBN 1-55634-527-5.  Contains a biographical sketch on p. 4, which is included in the excerpt at Steve Jackson Games.
• Ron Ellik, Bill Evans, and Al Lewis (1966). The Universes of E. E. Smith. Advent. ISBN 0-911682-03-1. 
• Ethan Fleischer Selectively Annotated English Primary Source Bibliography.
• Ethan Fleischer Z9M9Z: A Lensman Website
• Gharlane of Eddore (1998). Lensman FAQ http://www.chronology.org/noframes/lens/.
• Robert A. Heinlein (1979). "Larger Than Life", written for MosCon I, published in Robert A. Heinlein (1980). Expanded Universe. Grosset & Dunlap. ISBN 0-448-11916-1. 
• Edward E. Smith at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
• Stephen C. Lucchetti (2004). "Doc"—First Galactic Roamer: A Complete Bibliography…. NESFA Press. ISBN 1-886778-58-2. 
• Sam Moskowitz (1942). "Doughnut Specialist Smith Blasts Vortices in His Spare Time", Astonishing Stories, June 1942, p. 6. Biographical note accompanying "Storm Cloud on Deka", which is inconsistent with other sources. Unsigned; attribution per Ellik, Evans, & Lewis p. 262.
• Sam Moskowitz (1966). Seekers of Tomorrow. World Publishing. ISBN 0-88355-129-2. 
• Frederik Pohl (1964). "Ode to a Skylark", If, May 1964. Reprinted in Lucchetti, pp. 11–15.
  • (2009) Doc “Skylark” Smith
• Alva Rogers (1964). A Requiem for Astounding. Advent. ISBN 0-911682-16-3. 
• Joseph Sanders (1986). E. E. "Doc" Smith. Starmont House. ISBN 0-916732-73-8. 
• Thomas Sheridan (1977). E. E. "Doc" Smith, Father of Star Wars. Necronomicon Press.  8pp. Reprint of an article in Fantasy Review, 1948. Describes itself as an interview, but is mostly an essay with some extended quotations.
• Verna Smith Trestrail (presumably 1979). MosCon I Keynote Speech, unpublished typewritten notes.
• Harry Warner (1938). Brief biography in Spaceways Volume 1, #1.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: E. E. Smith

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Edward Elmer Smith

• Works by E. E. Smith at Project Gutenberg
• Edward E. Smith at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Skylark Three (original magazine version)
• Spacehounds of IPC (original magazine version)

Edward Morgan Forster
E. M. Forster, by Dora Carrington c. 1924-1925
Born	Edward Morgan Forster (1879-01-01)1 January 1879 Marylebone, London
Died	7 June 1970(1970-06-07) (aged 91) Coventry, Warwickshire
Occupation	Writer (novels, short stories, essays)
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Tonbridge School Cambridge University
Period	1901–70
Genres	Realism, Symbolism, modernism
Subjects	Class division, gender, homosexuality
Influences Edward Carpenter,[citation needed] Samuel Butler,[citation needed] Leonard Woolf,[citation needed] Joseph Conrad,[citation needed] Jane Austen[citation needed]
Signature

Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. Forster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect."

Early years[link]

Forster was born into an Anglo-Irish and Welsh middle-class family at 6 Melcombe Place, Dorset Square, London NW1, in a building that no longer exists. He was the only child of Alice Clara "Lily" (née Whichelo) and Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster, an architect. His name was officially registered as Henry Morgan Forster, but at his baptism he was accidentally named Edward Morgan Forster.^[1] To distinguish him from his father, he was always called Morgan. His father died of tuberculosis on 30 October 1880, before Morgan's second birthday.^[2] Among Forster's ancestors were members of the religious Clapham Sect.

He inherited £8,000 (£659,300 as of 2012),^[3] from his paternal great-aunt Marianne Thornton (daughter of the abolitionist Henry Thornton), who died on 5 November 1887.^[4] The money was enough to live on and enabled him to become a writer. He attended the notable public school, Tonbridge School in Kent, as a day boy. The theatre at the school has been named in his honour.^[5]

At King's College, Cambridge, between 1897 and 1901,^[6] he became a member of a discussion society known as the Apostles (formally named the Cambridge Conversazione Society). Many of its members went on to constitute what came to be known as the Bloomsbury Group, of which Forster was a peripheral member in the 1910s and 1920s. There is a famous recreation of Forster's Cambridge at the beginning of The Longest Journey.

After leaving university, he travelled in continental Europe with his mother. In 1914, he visited Egypt, Germany and India with the classicist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, by which time he had written all but one of his novels.^[7] In the First World War, as a conscientious objector, Forster volunteered for the International Red Cross, and served in Alexandria, Egypt.

Forster spent a second spell in India in the early 1920s as the private secretary to Tukojirao III, the Maharajah of Dewas. The Hill of Devi is his non-fictional account of this period. After returning to London from India, he completed his last novel, A Passage to India (1924), for which he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. He also edited Eliza Fay's (1756–1816) letters from India, in an edition first published in 1925.^[8]

[edit] After A Passage to India

Arlington Park Mansions, Chiswick

In the 1930s and 1940s Forster became a successful broadcaster on BBC Radio and a public figure associated with the Union of Ethical Societies. He was awarded a Benson Medal in 1937.

Forster was a closeted homosexual and lifelong bachelor.^[9] He developed a long-term, loving relationship with Bob Buckingham, a married policeman.^[10] Forster included Buckingham and his wife May in his circle, which included J. R. Ackerley, a writer and literary editor of The Listener, the psychologist W. J. H. Sprott and, for a time, the composer Benjamin Britten. Other writers with whom Forster associated included the poet Siegfried Sassoon and the Belfast-based novelist Forrest Reid.

From 1925 until Forster's mother's death at age 90 on 11 March 1945, he lived with her at West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, finally leaving on or around 23 September 1946.^[11] His London base was 26 Brunswick Square from 1930 to 1939, after which he rented 9 Arlington Park Mansions in Chiswick until at least 1961.^[12][13]

Forster was elected an honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge in January 1946,^[12] and lived for the most part in the college, doing relatively little. He declined a knighthood in 1949 and was made a Companion of Honour in 1953.^[12] In 1969 he was made a member of the Order of Merit. Forster died of a stroke^[14] in Coventry on 7 June 1970 at the age of 91, at the Buckinghams' home.^[12]

Novels[link]

The monument to Forster in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, near Rooks Nest where Forster grew up. He based the setting for his novel Howards End on this area, now informally known as Forster Country.

Forster had five novels published in his lifetime. Although Maurice was published shortly after his death, it had been written nearly sixty years earlier. He never finished a seventh novel, Arctic Summer.

His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), is the story of Lilia, a young English widow who falls in love with an Italian man, and of the efforts of her bourgeois relatives to get her back from Monteriano (based on San Gimignano). Philip Herriton's mission to retrieve her from Italy has features in common with that of Lambert Strether in Henry James's The Ambassadors. Forster discussed that work ironically and somewhat disapprovingly in his book Aspects of the Novel (1927). Where Angels Fear to Tread was adapted as a 1991 film directed by Charles Sturridge.

Next, Forster published The Longest Journey (1907), an inverted bildungsroman following the lame Rickie Elliott from Cambridge to a career as a struggling writer and then to a post as a schoolmaster, married to the unappealing Agnes Pembroke. In a series of scenes on the hills of Wiltshire, which introduce Rickie's wild half-brother Stephen Wonham, Forster attempts a kind of sublime related to those of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence.

Forster's third novel, A Room with a View (1908), is his lightest and most optimistic. It was started as early as 1901, before any of his others; its earliest versions are entitled "Lucy". The book explores the young Lucy Honeychurch's trip to Italy with her cousin, and the choice she must make between the free-thinking George Emerson and the repressed aesthete Cecil Vyse. George's father Mr Emerson quotes thinkers who influenced Forster, including Samuel Butler. A Room with a View was adapted as a film in 1985 by the Merchant-Ivory team.

Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View can be seen collectively as Forster's Italian novels. Both include references to the famous Baedeker guidebooks and concern narrow-minded middle-class English tourists abroad. The books share many themes with his short stories collected in The Celestial Omnibus and The Eternal Moment.

Howards End (1910) is an ambitious "condition-of-England" novel concerned with different groups within the Edwardian middle classes, represented by the Schlegels (bohemian intellectuals), the Wilcoxes (thoughtless plutocrats) and the Basts (struggling lower-middle-class aspirants). Critics have observed that numerous characters in Forster's novels die suddenly. This is true of Where Angels Fear to Tread, Howards End and, most particularly, The Longest Journey.

Forster achieved his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924). The novel takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj. Forster connects personal relationships with the politics of colonialism through the story of the Englishwoman Adela Quested, the Indian Dr. Aziz, and the question of what did or did not happen between them in the Marabar Caves. Forster makes special mention of the author Ahmed Ali and his Twilight in Delhi in his Preface to its Everyman's Library Edition.

Maurice (1971) was published posthumously. It is a homosexual love story which also returns to matters familiar from Forster's first three novels, such as the suburbs of London in the English home counties, the experience of attending Cambridge, and the wild landscape of Wiltshire. The novel was controversial, given that Forster's homosexuality had not been previously known or widely acknowledged. Today's critics continue to argue over the extent to which Forster's sexuality and personal activities,^[15] influenced his writing.

Critical reception[link]

In the United States, interest in, and appreciation for, Forster was spurred by Lionel Trilling's E. M. Forster: A Study, which began:

E. M. Forster is for me the only living novelist who can be read again and again and who, after each reading, gives me what few writers can give us after our first days of novel-reading, the sensation of having learned something (Trilling 1943).

Key themes[link]

Forster was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association from 1963 until his death. His views as a humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. His humanist attitude is expressed in the non-fictional essay What I Believe. When Forster’s cousin, Philip Whichelo, donated a portrait of Forster to the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GLHA), Jim Herrick, the founder, quoted Forster's words: "The humanist has four leading characteristics - curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race."

Forster's two best-known works, A Passage to India and Howards End, explore the irreconcilability of class differences. A Room with a View also shows how questions of propriety and class can make human connection difficult. The novel is his most widely read and accessible work, remaining popular long after its original publication. His posthumous novel Maurice explores the possibility of class reconciliation as one facet of a homosexual relationship.

Sexuality is another key theme in Forster's works. Some critics have argued that a general shift from heterosexual to homosexual love can be observed through the course of his writing career. The foreword to Maurice describes his struggle with his homosexuality, while he explored similar issues in several volumes of short stories. Forster's explicitly homosexual writings, the novel Maurice and the short story collection The Life to Come, were published shortly after his death.

Forster is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised (as by his friend Roger Fry) for his attachment to mysticism. One example of his symbolism is the wych elm tree in Howards End. The characters of Mrs. Wilcox in that novel and Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India have a mystical link with the past, and a striking ability to connect with people from beyond their own circles.

Notable works by Forster[link]

Novels[link]

• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
• The Longest Journey (1907)
• A Room with a View (1908)
• Howards End (1910)
• A Passage to India (1924)
• Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971)
• Arctic Summer (an incomplete fragment, written in 1912–13, published posthumously in 2003)
• Book of Love

Short stories[link]

• The Celestial Omnibus (and other stories) (1911)
• The Eternal Moment and other stories (1928)
• Collected Short Stories (1947) a combination of the above two titles, containing:
  • "The Story of a Panic"
  • "The Other Side Of The Hedge"
  • "The Celestial Omnibus"
  • "Other Kingdom"
  • "The Curate's Friend"
  • "The Road from Colonus"
  • "The Machine Stops"
  • "The Point of It"
  • "Mr Andrews"
  • "Co-ordination"
  • "The Story of the Siren"
  • "The Eternal Moment"
• The Life to Come and other stories (1972) (posthumous) containing the following stories written between approximately 1903 and 1960:
  • "Ansell"
  • "Albergo Empedocle"
  • "The Purple Envelope"
  • "The Helping Hand"
  • "The Rock"
  • "The Life to Come"
  • "Dr Woolacott"
  • "Arthur Snatchfold"
  • "The Obelisk"
  • "What Does It Matter? A Morality"
  • "The Classical Annex"
  • "The Torque"
  • "The Other Boat"
  • "Three Courses and a Dessert: Being a New and Gastronomic Version of the Old Game of Consequences"

Plays and pageants[link]

• Abinger Pageant (1934)
• England's Pleasant Land (1940)

Film scripts[link]

• A Diary for Timothy (1945) (directed by Humphrey Jennings, spoken by Michael Redgrave)

Libretto[link]

• Billy Budd (1951) (with Eric Crozier; based on Melville's novel, for the opera by Benjamin Britten)

Collections of essays and broadcasts[link]

• Abinger Harvest (1936)
• Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Literary criticism[link]

• Aspects of the Novel (1927)
• The Feminine Note in Literature (posthumous) (2001)

Biography[link]

• Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1934)
• Marianne Thornton, A Domestic Biography (1956)

Travel writing[link]

• Alexandria: A History and Guide (1922)
• Pharos and Pharillon (A Novelist's Sketchbook of Alexandria Through the Ages) (1923)
• The Hill of Devi (1953)

Miscellaneous writings[link]

• Selected Letters (1983–85)
• Commonplace Book (fascimile ed. 1978; edited by Philip Gardner, 1985)
• Locked Diary (2007) (held at King's College, Cambridge)

Notable films based upon novels by Forster[link]

• The Machine Stops (1966), dramatised for the BBC anthology series Out of the Unknown
• A Passage to India (1984), dir. David Lean
• A Room with a View (1985), dir. James Ivory
• Maurice (1987), dir. James Ivory
• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), dir. Charles Sturridge
• Howards End (1992), dir. James Ivory

Secondary works on Forster[link]

• Abrams, M.H. and Stephen Greenblatt, "E.M. Forster." The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2C, 7th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000: 2131–2140.
• Ackerley, J. R., E. M. Forster: A Portrait (Ian McKelvie, London, 1970)
• Bakshi, Parminder Kaur, Distant Desire. Homoerotic Codes and the Subversion of the English Novel in E. M. Forster's Fiction (New York, 1996).
• Beauman, Nicola, Morgan (London, 1993).
• Brander, Lauwrence, E.M. Forster. A critical study (London, 1968).
• Cavaliero, Glen, A Reading of E.M. Forster (London, 1979).
• Colmer, John, E.M. Forster – The personal voice (London, 1975).
• Crews, Frederick, E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism (Textbook Publishers, 2003).
• E.M. Forster, ed. by Norman Page, Macmillan Modern Novelists (Houndmills, 1987).
• E.M. Forster: The critical heritage, ed. by Philip Gardner (London, 1973).
• Forster: A collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Malcolm Bradbury (New Jersey, 1966).
• Furbank, P.N., E.M. Forster: A Life (London, 1977–78).
• Haag, Michael, Alexandria: City of Memory (London and New Haven, 2004). This portrait of Alexandria during the first half of the twentieth century includes a biographical account of E.M. Forster, his life in the city, his relationship with Constantine Cavafy, and his influence on Lawrence Durrell.
• Herz, Judith and Martin, Robert K. E. M. Forster: Centenary Revaluations (Macmillan Press, 1982).
• Kermode, Frank, Concerning E. M. Forster, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010)
• King, Francis, E.M. Forster and his World, (London, 1978).
• Lago, Mary. Calendar of the Letters of E. M. Forster, (London, Mansell, 1985).
• Lago, Mary. Selected Letters of E. M. Forster, (Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983-1985.)
• Lago, Mary. E. M. Forster: A Literary Life, (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1995.)
• Lewis, Robin Jared, E. M. Forster's Passages to India, Columbia University Press, New York, 1979.
• Martin, John Sayre, E.M. Forster. The endless journey (London, 1976).
• Martin, Robert K. and Piggford, George (eds.) Queer Forster (Chicago, 1997)
• Mishra, Pankaj (ed.) "E.M. Forster." India in Mind: An Anthology. New York: Vintage Books, 2005: 61–70.
• Moffat, Wendy, E.M. Forster: A New Life, (Bloomsbury, 2010).
• Scott, P.J.M., E.M. Forster: Our Permanent Contemporary, Critical Studies Series (London, 1984).
• Summers, Claude J., E.M. Forster (New York, 1983).
• Trilling, Lionel (1943), E. M. Forster: A Study, Norfolk: New Directions .
• Singh, K. Natwar, Editor, E. M. Forster: A Tribute, With Selections from his Writings on India, Contributors: Ahmed Ali, Mulk Raj Anand, Narayana Menon, Raja Rao & Santha Rama Rau, (On Forster's Eighty Fifth Birthday), Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., New York, 1 January 1964.
• Verduin, Kathleen, "Medievalism, Classicism, and the Fiction of E.M. Forster," in: Medievalism in the Modern World. Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman, ed. Richard Utz and Tom Shippey (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 263–86.
• Wilde, Alan, Art and Order. A Study of E.M. Forster (New York, 1967).
• Chanda, S.M. 'A Passage to India: A Close Look' in A Collection of Critical Essays Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: E. M. Forster

Wikisource has original works written by or about: E. M. Forster

General portals

• Aspects of E.M. Forster
• 'Only Connect': The unofficial Forster site
• Pharos: E. M. Forster
• The Zen Spirit in Forster

Sources

• Works by E. M. Forster at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
• Works by E. M. Forster at Internet Archive (scanned early editions illustrated)
• E.M. Forster Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• P. N. Furbank & F. J. H. Haskell (Spring 1953). "E. M. Forster, The Art of Fiction No. 1". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5219/the-art-of-fiction-no-1-e-m-forster. 
• Mary Lago Collection at the University of Missouri Libraries. Research papers of a Forster scholar.

LGBT

• With Downcast Gays, Andrew Hodges and David Hutter, The Gay Liberation pamphlet (1974)
• E.M. Forster on glbtq.com

v t e Works by E. M. Forster Novels Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) The Longest Journey (1907) A Room with a View (1908) Howards End (1910) A Passage to India (1924) Maurice (1971) Short stories The Celestial Omnibus (1911) The Eternal Moment (1928) "The Machine Stops" "The Life to Come" "The Classical Annex" "The Other Boat"