Abraham Merritt

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Abraham Merrit (around 1920)

Abraham Merritt (born January 20, 1884 in Beverly , New Jersey , † August 21, 1943 in Indian Rocks Beach , Florida ) was an American journalist and writer of science fiction and fantasy .

Life

Merritt dropped out of school and participated in excavations in the Yucatán at the age of 17 . He was one of the first whites to visit the Mayan city ​​of Tulúm . At 18, he became a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper . At 24 he was co-editor of this newspaper. From 1937 Merritt was the editor of The American Weekly , a Hearst magazine. His hobbies included subtropical horticulture and played the harp. Merritt was married twice, to Eleanore Ratcliffe and Eleanor H. Johnson.

plant

Merritt was one of the most influential authors of American adventure literature of the 1920s and 30s , along with Edgar Rice Burroughs and Henry Rider Haggard . The basic pattern of his novels is a male hero who, together with a helper, finds a forgotten culture and gets into all kinds of supernatural adventures. Many set pieces of adventure literature belong to it, such as non-human races, superior technology, sunken continents, decadence. The essential element is a romance with a woman from the relevant culture. In the end, the hero wins who finds a place among strangers with his beloved. Sometimes, however, the beloved dies and he returns to “our” civilization ( The Face in the Abyss ).

Merrit's novel Seven Footprints to Satan (German Seven Footprints to Satan ) was founded in 1929 by Benjamin Christensen filmed. In 1936, Tod Browning filmed the novel Burn, Witch, Burn! under the title The Devil-Doll (German Die Teufelspuppe ) with Lionel Barrymore and Maureen O'Sullivan in the leading roles.

Merritt was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1999 . In 2009 he posthumously received the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award for forgotten or no longer adequately recognized science fiction authors.

bibliography

The Metal Monster in Argosy , 1920
Novels
  • The Moon Pool (1919, also called The Conquest of the Moon Pool )
    • German: The Mondsee. Translated by Bernd Holzrichter. Heyne (Science Fiction & Fantasy # 3603), 1978, ISBN 3-453-30510-8 . Also as: The moon pond. Translated by Marcel Bieger. Fischer (Library of Fantastic Adventures # 2735), 1988, ISBN 3-596-22735-6 .
  • The Ship of Ishtar (1924, 1926)
    • German: Part 1: Ship of the Ishtar. Part 2: King of the Two Deaths. Translated by Lore Straßl . Pabel (Terra Fantasy # 35 and 36), 1977. Also in a part as: Island of Sorcerers. Blitz (Fantastic Novels # 3102), 1999, ISBN 3-932171-97-7 .
  • Seven Footprints to Satan (1917, 1928)
  • The Snake Mother (1930)
    • German: The snake mother. Pabel (Terra Fantasy # 79), 1980.
  • The Face in the Abyss (1931)
    • English: The face in the abyss. Fischer (Library of Fantastic Adventures # 2727), 1987, ISBN 3-596-22727-5 .
  • Dwellers in the Mirage (1932)
    • German: Part 1: Queen in the Shadow Realm. Part 2: The Kraken's Den. Translated by Lore Straßl. Pabel (Terra Fantasy # 47 and 48), 1978. Also as: The people of the Fata Morgana. Translated by Marcel Bieger. Fischer (Library of Fantastic Adventures # 2703), 1986, ISBN 3-596-22703-8 .
  • Burn, Witch, Burn! (1932, 1933)
    • English: The dolls of Madam Mandilip. Translated by Arnold G. Ludwig. Pabel (Utopia-Krimi # 12), 1956. Also as: Flieh, Hexe, flieh !. In: Sarban , Abraham Merritt, Gustav Meyrink : Witches & Devils: A satanic reading book. Festa (General Series # 1601), 1973, ISBN 3-935822-90-1 . Also as: flee, witch, flee !. Pabel (Vampir Taschenbuch # 3) 1973. Radio play adaptation : Madame Mandilips Puppen. Titania Media, 2015.
  • Cosmos: Chapter 11: The Last Poet and the Robots (1934, part of a collaboration with numerous other authors)
  • Creep, Shadow! (1934, also as Creep, Shadow, Creep ! , 1935)
    • English: The Queen of Shadows. Pabel (Vampire Paperback # 60), 1978.
  • The Metal Monster (1920/1928, 1945)
    • German: Metallstadt. Fischer (Library of Fantastic Adventures # 2739), 1988, ISBN 3-596-22739-9 .
  • The Fox Woman and The Blue Pagoda (1946, with Hannes Bok )
  • The Black Wheel (1947, with Hannes Bok)
Collections
  • The Fox Woman and Other Stories (1949)
  • A. Merritt: Reflections in the Moon Pool (1985, with Sam Moskowitz)
  • The Women of the Wood & The Fox Woman (2011)
  • Through the Dragon Glass and Other Stories (2011)
  • The Pool of the Stone God and Other Tales (2012)
  • The A. Merritt Megapack: 19 Classic Novels and Stories (2014)
  • Œuvres complètes (French edition, 2 vols., 1997)
  • Witches & Devils: A Satanic Reader (2004, with other stories by Sarban and Gustav Meyrink)
Short stories
  • Through the Dragon Glass (1917)
    • German: Through the dragon glass. In: Lin Carter (ed.): The magic gardens. Pabel (Terra Fantasy # 45), 1978.
  • The People of the Pit (1918)
    • German: The essence of the deep. In: James Gunn (ed.): From Wells to Stapledon. Heyne (Library of Science Fiction Literature # 92), 1988, ISBN 3-453-02758-2 .
  • The Moon Pool (1918)
  • Three Lines of Old French (1919)
    • German: Three lines of old French. In: Science-Fiction-Stories 41. Ullstein (Ullstein 2000 # 77 (3081)), 1974, ISBN 3-548-03081-5 .
  • The Face in the Abyss (1923)
  • The Pool of the Stone God (1923, also as W. Fenimore)
  • The Woman of the Wood (1926)
    • English: Murder in the Spirit Forest. In: Alden H. Norton (ed.): A skull made of sugar. Heyne (Heyne General Series # 867), 1971. Also as: The heart of the forest. In: Hugh Walker (Ed.): The Enchanted Crusade. Pabel (Terra Fantasy # 91), 1981.
  • The Drone Man (1934, also as The Drone )
    • German: Gestaltwandler. In: Hans-Jürgen Frederichs (Ed.): SF Perry Rhodan Magazin, April 1981. Pabel, 1981. Also as: The drone. Translated by Heiko Langhans. In: Joachim Körber (Ed.): The great reading book of classical fantasy. Goldmann (Goldmann Fantasy # 24818), 1998, ISBN 3-442-24818-3 .
  • Rhythm of the Spheres (1934)
  • The Last Poet & the Wrongness of Space (1934)
  • The Last Poet and the Robots (1934)
  • The Challenge from Beyond: Part 2 (1935, part of a collaboration with CL Moore , HP Lovecraft , Robert E. Howard and Frank Belknap Long )
    • English: The threat from outer space. In: Frank Festa (Ed.): The Lovecraft Circle. Blitz (HP Lovecraft's Library of Secrets # 2603), 2000, ISBN 3-932171-89-6 .
  • The Fox Woman (1946)
  • The Whelming of Cherkis (1946, excerpt from The Metal Monster )
  • When Old Gods Wake (1948)
    • German: When old gods awaken. In: Hugh Walker (Ed.): Magira, # 37. EDFC, 1987.
  • The White Road (1949)
  • Pilgrimage, or, Obi Giese (1985)
Non-fiction
  • The Story Behind the Story (1942)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review of the radio play Madame Mandilips Puppen , published on March 13, 2015, accessed on March 16, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Merritt, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES W. Fenimore (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Beverly , New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 1943
Place of death Indian Rocks Beach , Florida