Erroll Collins

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Erroll Collins (actually Ellen Edith Hannah Redknap) (* 15. April 1906 in Shadwell , London , England ; † 11. March 1991 ) was a British science fiction - writer .

biography

Collins was born Ellen Edith Hannah Redknap in Shadwell, London, the eldest of four children and the daughter of Frederick Redknap (1887-1950), a master plumber. As a child she set such a good example for her younger siblings that in the last few years of her life many family members referred to her as "Goody Two Shoes" (moral apostle) and addressed her as Aunt Goody.

She had been an excellent pianist as a child, but never played again after her mother's death in 1934. She attended St. Mary's College on Twickenham Road (possibly now known as Gumley School), where she wanted to write even then. Occasionally she also liked to paint with watercolors. She was an avid pond turtle breeder and often wore one in her apron when doing housework. She had a very broad general knowledge and read a lot. After her death, it was almost impossible to enter any of her rooms because there were more than two thousand books stacked from floor to ceiling in the room.

Redknap never married. Instead, she looked after her younger siblings and father after her mother died and she later looked after her brother, Earnest. He had a notable military history in the army in 1939 and was given command when participating in the 1940 attack on Lofoten . He later became a glider and small aircraft pilot in the Glider Pilot Regiment. After the war, he was dismissed from service with the rank of Staff Sergeant. He then did research for the Paint Research Association, now known as PRA. He died in 1979 and his sister lived until 1991 and died alone in their Isleworth home on March 11th of that year.

Writer

Redknap was primarily active as a writer in the 1940s and 1950s. She wrote mostly science fiction and adventure novels for teenagers. She published under several pseudonyms, mainly as Erroll Collins. She published a book as Greame Grant Hawkins, in honor of her nephew and his birth.

Your war between the worlds of 1944 is very progressive science fiction for its time. Redknap envisions a future world in which there are populations on Mars , Venus, and Earth who travel in spaceships in the solar system and inevitably get into wars. It was published as a serialized novel in the then popular The Boy's Own Paper and will have influenced many young people of this generation to become interested in the possibility of human space travel. To a certain extent, it anticipates Robert A. Heinlein's later work , although it is clearly aimed only at young people. It was published in bound form by Lutterworth Press in 1949. War Between the Worlds anticipates a number of political realignments, some of which have actually come true. The book predicts that the "United States of Europe," not dissimilar to the EU, will be formed despite the fact that the British Empire and the United States have come together to form the "British-American Empire". Nonetheless, Collins rightly assumes that the world's biggest trouble spots will be in the Middle East at the turn of the millennium. In her novel, Europe and Asia fight over the Caspian Sea. In the interplanetary war that marks the climax of history, Earth wins mainly because the population unites against their common enemies, Mars and Venus.

She predicted the landing site for the Apollo missions 28 years earlier and said in a local newspaper article: "I picked the Sea of ​​Tranquility because it seemed the most likely spot to land. It's central, and flat. But it was just a guess. " "I chose the Sea of ​​Tranquility because it was the most likely to land there. It's central and shallow. But it was just a guess."

During World War II , one of her books was denied permission to print by the censors for reasons of national security because the fiction was a little too close to the reality of things that were being secretly developed. In The Secret of Rosrnerstrand , 1941, Redknap also made a guess as to what the German army was up to on the seabed. In this novel, which the publisher describes as a prophetic, exciting, menacing story of modern warfare, the Nazis develop an underwater base from which submarines and troop carriers on tractors prepare to invade the ocean floor in Britain. Even she was surprised when tons of captured Nazi documents were published in 1957 and it turned out that they had exactly such a project on the drawing board.

It seems that she may have been an acquaintance of Barnes Wallis - the use of swivel blades in war between the worlds could have originated in this association.

She worked as the personal assistant to MacDonald Hastings , a journalist and war correspondent, a journalist for Picture Post and Bernard Weatherill's father.

In later life, poetry formed the bulk of her work and she had many verses published both in local publications and on her own. She was also interested in helping others and gave a lot of advice to aspiring poets and writers and occasionally worked as an editor.

bibliography

Novels
  • The Isle of the Black Pearl (1935, as EEH Redknap)
  • Galleons of the Air (1940)
  • The Sea Falcon (1940)
  • The Secret of Rosmerstrand (1942)
  • Outlaw Squadron (1943)
  • Mariners of Space (1944)
    • German in 2 parts: Part 1: War between the worlds. Translated by Clark Darlton. Pabel (Utopia large volume # 12), 1954. Part 2: Escape to Earth. Translated by Clark Darlton. Pabel (Utopia large volume # 13), 1954.
  • The Hawk of Aurania (1944)
  • Rebel Wings (1945)
  • Submarine City (1946)
  • Wings Over the Arctic (1947, as Greame Grant Hawkins)
  • The Stars of Korania (1948)
  • The Black Dwarf of Mongolia (1949)
  • Pirates in Space (1953)
  • Adventures on the Planet (1953, in: Fantastic Science Thriller # 1 ; as Simon Querry)
  • A Spot on the Sun (1954, in: Fantastic Science Thriller # 3 ; as Joseph Mois)
  • Conquerors of Space (1954, in: Fantastic Science Thriller # 5 )
  • Planets of Peril (1954, in: Fantastic Science Thriller # 4 ; as Clyde Marfax)
  • Volcanic Treasure (1955, as Greame Grant Hawkins)
  • Wings of Resistance (1959, as Greame Grant Hawkins)
Short stories
  • The Luck of the Lindsays (1936)
  • The Tiki of Tautauro (1936)
  • The Sunstone (1936)
  • The Gray Druid (1937)
  • The Haunted Reef (1937)
  • Deaths Door (1937)
  • The Dare-Devil Pilot (1938)
  • Galleons of the Air (1939)
  • The Sea Falcon (1940)
  • The Lost Lake (1944)
  • The Silver Joss (1944)
  • Beaver Gold (1944, as EEH Redknap)
  • Red for Danger (1946)
Poetry (as Ellen EH Collins)
  • The Star Rover. A poem (1953)
  • Poems of Earth, Sea and Sky (1959)
  • More Poems of Earth, Sea and Sky (1960)
  • Astrology, and other poems (1961)
  • Impressions (1961)
  • Poems for All Seasons (1961)
  • Strange Altars (1973)
  • Un-Cuddly Creatures (1989)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steve Holland: On the Trail of Erroll Collins . Books Monthly. Retrieved March 1, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Collins, Erroll
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Redknap, Ellen Edith Hannah (real name); Marfax, Clyde (pseudonym); Mois, Joseph (pseudonym); Querry, Simon (pseudonym); Grant, Graeme (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British science fiction writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 1991