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Author: Steven H Silver

Forgotten Authors: Henry J. Kostkos

Forgotten Authors: Henry J. Kostkos

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Amazing Stories, August-September 1933, cover by Leo Morey

This week starts a brief period where these explorations are going to be shorter, for many of these authors have little biographical information available.

In the 1972 anthology Clarion II, Damon Knight included an essay entitled “Goodbye, Henry J. Kostkos, Goodbye,” using the author, along with J. Harvey Haggard, as an example of an author he once read and was invested in, but whose name no longer meant anything to modern readers. At the time, both Kostkos and Haggard were alive (Haggard would be alive for another 29 years).

Henry J. Kostkos was born on June 11, 1900.

Kostkos and his wife, Mary, had two children, Miriam and Maureen. Kostkos worked for Western Electric as an electrical engineer as well as for Bell Labs in Chicago and Ohio. He worked on display mechanisms developed by Bell Labs for their associated telephone companies. At various times, he ran his own contracting business in New York and in Chicago.

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Forgotten Authors: Harry Stephen Keeler

Forgotten Authors: Harry Stephen Keeler

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Harry Stephen Keeler

Harry Stephen Keeler was born in Chicago on November 3, 1890. His father died when he was two and his mother subsequently remarried. After her new husband, who was a gambler, lost Keeler’s mother’s savings and mortgaged the family home that was left to her by Keeler’s father, he killed himself. Keeler’s mother subsequently remarried again, but her third husband died of illness when Keeler was only 13 years old.  Following the suicide of his first step father, Keeler’s mother took in boarders, mostly theatrical workers, to make ends meet and keep the family home.

The trauma of losing a father and two step fathers by the age of 13 appears to have had an impact on Keeler’s mental state and his mother had him committed to an insane asylum when he was a child. He apparently had multiple sessions in the asylum, including one that ended with his discharge on July 29, 1914, when he was declared recovered and had his property and voting rights restored.

Keeler often skipped school to attend to a paper route, but eventually he managed to earn a degree in electrical engineering from the Armour Institute. From 1912 to 1914, he worked in a steel mill in Chicago. He began writing in earnest in 1913, publishing his first short story that year. 1914 saw him publishing his first piece of crime fiction, the novella “Victim No. 5.” His early fiction appeared in magazines such as Argosy and Top-Notch Magazine.

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Forgotten Authors: Chauncey Thomas

Forgotten Authors: Chauncey Thomas

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Chauncey Thomas

Chauncey Thomas was born in Maxfield, Maine to Prince and Mary (Née Webb) Thomas on May 1, 1822. Both of his parents claimed descent from the early Plymouth Colony settlers. Spending his early life helping out on his father’s farm, he only attended school intermittently and, when he was 15 years old was apprenticed to Whiton & Badger, a chaise carriage maker in Bangor, Maine. The terms of his apprenticeship meant he had to work 12 hours a day, in return for board and clothing and the occasional payment of a dollar. He also received one term at the Apprentices’ School in Bangor.

In 1844, Whiton and Badger procured a position for Thomas at the Boston firm of Slade & Whiton, a firm which dated back to 1813. Thomas was given the task of working on drawings for woodwork and blacksmithing departments, as well as creating renderings of finished products for clients.

Eventually, he was placed in charge of the construction of carriage bodies, but around that time he suffered a knee injury that required him to recuperate at home for nearly two years, during which time he studied astronomy, various types of mathematics, and surveying.  When he was able to return to work in 1851, he moved to West Newbury, Massachusetts and entered a partnership with Daniel P. Nichols to form Nichols & Thomas. He stayed with the Nichols family and fell in love with Nichols’ younger sister, Mary Jane.

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Forgotten Authors: Bert Shurtleff

Forgotten Authors: Bert Shurtleff

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Bert Shurtleff

Bert Shurtleff was born on August 3, 1897 to Eugene Kassuth Shurtleff and Hattie Elma (née Cook) in Adamsville, Rhode Island. He was the seventh of ten children. When he was fourteen, he left home to try to support himself, returning to school when he was 18 and attending East Greenwich Academy for High School.

During World War I, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force while attending college, eventually taking a job at a powder factory.  He eventually was activated, but not sent overseas, instead serving in New London, Connecticut and being sent for training at Brown University in Providence. When the war ended, he enrolled at Brown, where he earned the New England Intercollegiate Lightweight Wrestling Title in 1920 and played for the Brown football team, his first two years as a tackle, shifting to center his senior year. While at Brown, he also published a book of poetry.

He married Hope C. Seal on his birthday in 1922. They had three children, Jeane, Faith, and David. Hope and Shurtleff divorced at some point and in 1946, again on his birthday, he married Margaret D. Dorgan.

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Forgotten Authors: Leah Bodine Drake

Forgotten Authors: Leah Bodine Drake

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Leah Bodine Drake

Leah Bodine Drake was born on December 22, 1904 in Chanute, Kansas to Thomas and Cornelia (née Bodine) Drake. Her father worked in the oil industry. Drake was sent to the Oakhurst School for Girls in Cincinnati and later attended Hamilton College, a junior college operated by Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky as well as Sayre College in the same city.

Drake began publishing poetry in 1935 and is primarily known as a poet, although she also published some short fiction. From 1936-1937, She appeared as a Billy Rose dancer in the Fort Worth Centennial Exposition. Drake’s first published poem was “In the Shadows,” which appeared in the October 1935 issue of Weird Tales. The same issue of Weird Tales included the first of eight letters she had published in the magazine. Her letters indicated that she haunted used book stores searching for old back-issues of Weird Tales, which she said were rare and more expensive than other magazines. She would go on to publish nearly three dozen poems in the magazine.

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Forgotten Authors: George Griffith

Forgotten Authors: George Griffith

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George Griffith

George Griffith was born George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones on August 20, 1857 in Plymouth, England to George Alfred Jones and Jeanette Henry Capinster Jones. The family did not have roots to any specific place as his father’s role as a clergyman kept him moving from parish to parish. By the time George was seven, his father had served in at least six different parishes.

He was home-schooled by his parents and allowed to teach himself from books in his father’s library.  Following his father’s death in 1872, Griffith began attending private school , where the limitations of his home schooling became apparent, particularly with regard to mathematics. He left school in 1873 and ran away to sea, deserting in Melbourne, Australia after less than three months. By the age of 19, he had worked in various jobs in Australia and managed to travel, eventually returning to England where he began teaching English, first at Worthing College in Sussex and later at Bolton Grammar School in Manchester. He viewed his time teaching as “penal servitude.”

It was while he was teaching at Bolton that he published his first two books, Poems and The Dying Faith, both were collections of poetry and both published under the pseudonym Lara. Other pseudonyms he used over the course of his career included Levin Carnac and Stanton Morich. He also met Elizabeth Brierly, whom he married in February of 1887.  They had a daughter and two sons, including Alan Arnold Griffith, who was a mechanical engineer who helped develop the jet engine.

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Forgotten Authors: R.F. Starzl

Forgotten Authors: R.F. Starzl

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R.F. Starzl

Roman Frederick Starzl, who wrote as R.F. Starzl was born in Le Mars, Iowa on December 10, 1899 to John V.N. Starzl and Margaret (née Theisen). His grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1895, along with their five children, including Starzl’s father.  While the family settled in Le Mars, Iowa, John moved to Chicago, where he owned a pharmacy. Around the time he married Margaret, John moved back to Le Mars and bought a German language newspaper, Der Herold, which he renamed Le Mars Globe-Post newspaper. Starzl began working as reporter for his father and claims he began writing for the pulp magazines in order to raise enough capital to acquire the newspaper and the printing press, a goal he achieved in 1934 when he became a partner in the Globe-Post, becoming the sole owner and publisher in 1940.

Starzl served in the army during World War I, serving for about eight and half months. Upon his return to the U.S., he spent a year at Northwestern University before finding a job in the advertising department of the Chicago Tribune. He worked there from 1920 until 1923, when he returned to Le Mars, began working for his father, and married Anna Laura Fitzgerald on November 14. Anna was a nurse from  They had one son, Thomas, who was born in 1926. Anna died in 1947 and on July 27, 1948, Starzl married Rita Gertrude Kenaley.

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Forgotten Authors: T.L. Sherred

Forgotten Authors: T.L. Sherred

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Thomas L. Sherred

Thomas L. Sherred was born on August 27, 1915 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He wrote as T.L. Sherred.

Sherred had a limited career as a science fiction author, publishing his first short story in 1947 with additional stories appearing in 1953, 1954, and 1972, for a total of six stories, four of which were collected in the 1972 collection First Person, Peculiar. His debut story, “E for Effort,” was published in the May 1947 issue of Astounding. It was frequently reprinted, including in the anthology Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

When he wasn’t writing science fiction, Sherred worked in Detroit in the automotive field, beginning in tool rooms and eventually moving on to technical writing and public relations.

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Forgotten Authors: Philip Francis Nowlan

Forgotten Authors: Philip Francis Nowlan

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Philip Francis Nowlan

Philip Francis Nowlan’s name may not be remembered by many, but he may be the most influential science author I’ll discuss in this series. Born on November 13, 1888 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nowlan earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1910. At college, he was a member of The Mask and Wig Club, a college musical comedy troupe, and he wrote and performed in their shows. He married Teresa Marie Junker in 1918 and they had ten children, four daughters and six sons, one of whom, Michael Joseph Nowlan, died earlier this year at the age of 99. His son, Philip F. Nowlan, Jr., was enough of a science fiction fan that it was mentioned prominently in his obituary.

Although he worked for various newspapers, including the Public Ledger, the North American, and Retail Ledger, his most notable work was his debut science fiction story.

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Forgotten Authors: Rog Phillips

Forgotten Authors: Rog Phillips

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Rog Phillips

Roger Phillip Graham was born in Spokane, Washington on February 20, 1909 to John Alfred Graham and Abbie Susan (née McCalmont). His family moved often, spending time in Oklahoma, among other places. He returned to Spokane to attend Gonzaga College, from which he graduated in 1931 and did some graduate work at the University of Washington. Most of his sf work appeared under the name Rog Phillips.

During the pre-war years, Phillips held a variety of jobs, including working as a farm worker,  plumber, construction worker, and carpenter. During World War II, he worked as a power plant engineer and a shipyard welder.

Graham married Eleanor Cora Smith on October 8, 1938 in Spokane, although they were divorced by 1950, when he married sf fan and author Mari Wolf. They divorced in 1955 and the following year, he married another fan, Honey Wood, to whom he remained married until his death. Wood and Phillip were members of the Outlanders, a subset of LASFS fans who lived just outside Los Angeles.

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