Edmond Hamilton
Encyclopedia
Edmond Moore Hamilton was an American author of science fiction
stories and novels during the mid-twentieth century.http://www.pulpgen.com/pulp/edmond_hamilton/ Born in Youngstown
, Ohio
, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania
. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and started college (Westminster College
, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania
) at the age of 14, but washed out at 17.
His career as a science fiction
writer began with the publication of the short story "The Monster God of Mamurth", which appeared in the August 1926 issue of the classic magazine of alternative fiction, Weird Tales
. Hamilton quickly became a central member of the remarkable group of Weird Tales writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright
, that included H. P. Lovecraft
and Robert E. Howard
. Hamilton would publish 79 works of fiction in Weird Tales between 1926 and 1948, making him one of the most prolific of the magazine's contributors (only Seabury Quinn
and August Derleth
appeared more frequently). Hamilton became a friend and associate of several Weird Tales veterans, including E. Hoffmann Price and Otis Adelbert Kline
; most notably, he struck up a 20-year friendship with close contemporary Jack Williamson
, as Williamson records in his 1984 autobiography Wonder's Child. In the late 1930s Weird Tales printed several striking fantasy tales by Hamilton, most notably "He That Hath Wings" (July 1938), one of his most popular and frequently-reprinted pieces.
Through the late 1920s and early '30s Hamilton wrote for all of the SF pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed horror
and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was very popular as an author of space opera
, a sub-genre he created along with E.E. "Doc" Smith
. His story "The Island of Unreason" (Wonder Stories
, May 1933) won the first Jules Verne Prize as the best SF story of the year (this was the first SF prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards). In the later 1930s, in response to the economic strictures of the Great Depression
, he also wrote detective and crime stories. Always prolific in stereotypical pulp-magazine fashion, Hamilton sometimes saw 4 or 5 of his stories appear in a single month in these years; the February 1937 issue of the pulp Popular Detective featured three Hamilton stories, one under his own name and two under pseudonym
s. In the 1940s, Hamilton was the primary force behind the Captain Future
franchise
,http://www.robertweinberg.net/captainfuture.htm an SF pulp designed for juvenile readers that won him many fans, but diminished his reputation in later years when science fiction moved away from the space-opera-genre. Hamilton was always associated with an extravagant, romantic, high-adventure style of SF, perhaps best represented by his 1947 novel The Star Kings. As the SF field grew more sophisticated, his brand of extreme adventure seemed ever more quaint, corny, and dated.
In 1946 Hamilton began writing for DC Comics
, specializing in stories for their characters Superman
http://fortress.supermanthrutheages.com/tales2/invasion and Batman
. One of his best known Superman stories was "Superman Under the Red Sun", which appeared in Action Comics
#300 in 1963 and which has numerous elements in common with his novel City At World's End
http://books.google.com/books?id=DI0-ClCBBsAC&pg=PP1&dq=edmond+hamilton&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false (1951). He was instrumental in the early growth of the Legion of Super-Heroes series, as one of its first regular writers. He introduced many of the early Legion concepts into the D.C. Universe. He also wrote other works for DC Comics, including the short-lived science fiction series Chris KL-99
(in Strange Adventures
), which was loosely based on his Captain Future character. He retired from comics in 1966.
and screen writer Leigh Brackett
in San Gabriel, CA, and moved with her to Kinsman, Ohio
. Afterward he would produce some of his best work, including his novels The Star of Life (1947), The Valley of Creation (1948), City at World's End (1951), and The Haunted Stars (1960). In this more mature phase of his career, Hamilton moved away from the romantic and fantastic elements of his earlier fiction to create some unsentimental and realistic stories, such as "What's It Like Out There?" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Dec. 1952), his single most frequently-reprinted and anthologized work.
Though Hamilton and Leigh Brackett worked side by side for a quarter-century, they rarely shared the task of authorship; their single formal collaboration, Stark and the Star Kings, would not appear in print until 2005. In the early 1960s, it has been speculated that when Brackett had temporarily abandoned SF for screenwriting, Hamilton did an uncredited revision and expansion of two early Brackett stories, "Black Amazon of Mars" and "Queen of the Martian Catacombs"—revised texts were published as the novellas People of the Talisman and The Secret of Sinharat (1964).
Edmond Hamilton died in 1977 in Lancaster
, California
, of complications following kidney surgery. In the year before his death Toei Animation
had launched production of an anime
adaptation of his Captain Future
novels and Tsuburaya Productions adapted Star Wolf
into a tokusatsu
series ; both series were aired on Japanese television in 1978. The Captain Future adaptation was later exported to Europe, winning Hamilton a new and different fan base than the one that had acclaimed him half a century before, notably in France and Germany.
On October 16, 2010 (Hamilton's 106th birthday), the Kinsman Historical Society and Haffner Press hosted Edmond Hamilton/Leigh Brackett Day http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=307550163630&index=1 in Kinsman, Ohio.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
stories and novels during the mid-twentieth century.http://www.pulpgen.com/pulp/edmond_hamilton/ Born in Youngstown
Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County; it also extends into Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania
New Castle, Pennsylvania
New Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, northwest of Pittsburgh and near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border just east of Youngstown, Ohio; in 1910, the total population was 36,280; in 1920, 44,938; and in 1940, 47,638. The population has fallen to 26,309 according to the...
. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and started college (Westminster College
Westminster College, Pennsylvania
Westminster College is a liberal arts college located in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1852, it is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church...
, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania
New Wilmington, Pennsylvania
New Wilmington is a borough in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, first platted in 1824 and established as a borough on April 9, 1873. The population was 2,452 at the 2000 census...
) at the age of 14, but washed out at 17.
Writing career
Edmond is credited as the author of the first hardcover compilation of what would eventually come to be known as the science fiction genre, The Horror on The Asteroid and Other Tales of Planetary Horror (1936). The book compiles the following stories: "The Horror on the Asteroid", “The Accursed Galaxy", "The Man Who Saw Everything" ("The Man With the X-Ray Eyes"), "The Earth-Brain", "The Monster-God of Mamurth", and "The Man Who Evolved".His career as a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer began with the publication of the short story "The Monster God of Mamurth", which appeared in the August 1926 issue of the classic magazine of alternative fiction, Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
. Hamilton quickly became a central member of the remarkable group of Weird Tales writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright
Farnsworth Wright
Farnsworth Wright was the editor of the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the magazine's heyday.He was born in California, and educated in the University of Nevada and the University of Washington....
, that included H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
and Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
. Hamilton would publish 79 works of fiction in Weird Tales between 1926 and 1948, making him one of the most prolific of the magazine's contributors (only Seabury Quinn
Seabury Quinn
Seabury Grandin Quinn was an American pulp magazine author, most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in Weird Tales.-Biography:...
and August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
appeared more frequently). Hamilton became a friend and associate of several Weird Tales veterans, including E. Hoffmann Price and Otis Adelbert Kline
Otis Adelbert Kline
Otis Adelbert Kline born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E...
; most notably, he struck up a 20-year friendship with close contemporary Jack Williamson
Jack Williamson
John Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
, as Williamson records in his 1984 autobiography Wonder's Child. In the late 1930s Weird Tales printed several striking fantasy tales by Hamilton, most notably "He That Hath Wings" (July 1938), one of his most popular and frequently-reprinted pieces.
Through the late 1920s and early '30s Hamilton wrote for all of the SF pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was very popular as an author of space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
, a sub-genre he created along with E.E. "Doc" Smith
E. E. Smith
Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D., also, E. E. Smith, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Doc Smith, "Skylark" Smith, and Ted was a food engineer and early science fiction author who wrote the Lensman series and the Skylark series, among others...
. His story "The Island of Unreason" (Wonder Stories
Wonder Stories
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went...
, May 1933) won the first Jules Verne Prize as the best SF story of the year (this was the first SF prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards). In the later 1930s, in response to the economic strictures of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, he also wrote detective and crime stories. Always prolific in stereotypical pulp-magazine fashion, Hamilton sometimes saw 4 or 5 of his stories appear in a single month in these years; the February 1937 issue of the pulp Popular Detective featured three Hamilton stories, one under his own name and two under pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s. In the 1940s, Hamilton was the primary force behind the Captain Future
Captain Future
Captain Future is a science fictional hero pulp character originally published in self-titled American pulp magazines during the 1940s and early 50s.-Origins:...
franchise
Media franchise
A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
,http://www.robertweinberg.net/captainfuture.htm an SF pulp designed for juvenile readers that won him many fans, but diminished his reputation in later years when science fiction moved away from the space-opera-genre. Hamilton was always associated with an extravagant, romantic, high-adventure style of SF, perhaps best represented by his 1947 novel The Star Kings. As the SF field grew more sophisticated, his brand of extreme adventure seemed ever more quaint, corny, and dated.
In 1946 Hamilton began writing for DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, specializing in stories for their characters Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
http://fortress.supermanthrutheages.com/tales2/invasion and Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
. One of his best known Superman stories was "Superman Under the Red Sun", which appeared in Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
#300 in 1963 and which has numerous elements in common with his novel City At World's End
City at World's End
City at World's End is a BBC Books original novel written by Christopher Bulis and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the First Doctor, Barbara, Ian, and Susan.-Plot:...
http://books.google.com/books?id=DI0-ClCBBsAC&pg=PP1&dq=edmond+hamilton&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false (1951). He was instrumental in the early growth of the Legion of Super-Heroes series, as one of its first regular writers. He introduced many of the early Legion concepts into the D.C. Universe. He also wrote other works for DC Comics, including the short-lived science fiction series Chris KL-99
Chris KL-99
Chris KL-99 is a 1950s science fiction comic book character whose adventures were published by National Comics, now known as DC Comics. He first appeared in Strange Adventures #1 , and was created by science fiction author Edmond Hamilton and artist Howard Sherman.His character may have been...
(in Strange Adventures
Strange Adventures
Strange Adventures was the title of several American comic books published by DC Comics, most notably a long-running science fiction anthology that began in 1950.-Original series:...
), which was loosely based on his Captain Future character. He retired from comics in 1966.
Marriage and collaboration
On December 31, 1946, Hamilton married fellow science fiction authorAuthor
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and screen writer Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
in San Gabriel, CA, and moved with her to Kinsman, Ohio
Kinsman, Ohio
Kinsman is an unincorporated community in southern Kinsman Township, Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 44428; as well as a library, the Kinsman Free Public Library...
. Afterward he would produce some of his best work, including his novels The Star of Life (1947), The Valley of Creation (1948), City at World's End (1951), and The Haunted Stars (1960). In this more mature phase of his career, Hamilton moved away from the romantic and fantastic elements of his earlier fiction to create some unsentimental and realistic stories, such as "What's It Like Out There?" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Dec. 1952), his single most frequently-reprinted and anthologized work.
Though Hamilton and Leigh Brackett worked side by side for a quarter-century, they rarely shared the task of authorship; their single formal collaboration, Stark and the Star Kings, would not appear in print until 2005. In the early 1960s, it has been speculated that when Brackett had temporarily abandoned SF for screenwriting, Hamilton did an uncredited revision and expansion of two early Brackett stories, "Black Amazon of Mars" and "Queen of the Martian Catacombs"—revised texts were published as the novellas People of the Talisman and The Secret of Sinharat (1964).
Edmond Hamilton died in 1977 in Lancaster
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, of complications following kidney surgery. In the year before his death Toei Animation
Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...
had launched production of an anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
adaptation of his Captain Future
Captain Future
Captain Future is a science fictional hero pulp character originally published in self-titled American pulp magazines during the 1940s and early 50s.-Origins:...
novels and Tsuburaya Productions adapted Star Wolf
Star Wolf (TV series)
Star Wolf is a Japanese science fiction TV series inspired by the novel series bearing the same name, by American writer Edmond Hamilton...
into a tokusatsu
Tokusatsu
is a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that usually features superheroes and makes considerable use of special effects ....
series ; both series were aired on Japanese television in 1978. The Captain Future adaptation was later exported to Europe, winning Hamilton a new and different fan base than the one that had acclaimed him half a century before, notably in France and Germany.
Collected Works
In 2009, Haffner Press released the first two books in a program to collect all of Hamilton's prose work. A volume (the first of six) collecting the first four Captain Future novels also appeared at the same time. Early in 2010, additional volumes were announced.- The Metal Giants and Others, The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume One (2009)
- The Star-Stealers: The Complete Tales of the Interstellar Patrol, The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Two (2009)
- The Universe Wreckers, The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Three (2010)
- The Collected Captain Future, Volume One (2009)
- The Collected Captain Future, Volume Two (2010)
Edmond Hamilton / Leigh Brackett Day
On July 18, 2009, Kinsman, Ohio, celebrated Edmond Hamilton Day.On October 16, 2010 (Hamilton's 106th birthday), the Kinsman Historical Society and Haffner Press hosted Edmond Hamilton/Leigh Brackett Day http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=307550163630&index=1 in Kinsman, Ohio.