Sophie Wenzel Ellis (July 22, 1893 – June 1984) was an American writer. She was an early female author of "pulp" science fiction stories.
Early life
editSophie Louise Wenzel was born in Memphis, Tennessee and lived in Little Rock, Arkansas as an adult.[1]
Career
edit
Ellis's stories appeared mostly in "pulp" magazines,[2][3] and included "The Unseen Seventh" (The Thrill Book 1919), "The Lily Garden" (Mystery Stories 1928; republished in Phantom 1958), "The White Wizard" (Weird Tales 1929), "The Spirit in the Garden" (Ghost Stories 1929), "Does Death Guard This Viking Hoard?" (True Strange Stories 1929), "Creatures of the Light" (Astounding 1930), "Slaves of the Dust" (Astounding 1930), "The Shadow World" (Amazing Stories 1932), "White Lady" (Strange Tales 1933), and "The Dwellers in the House" (Weird Tales 1933).
Her stories, especially "Creatures of the Light", have been anthologized several times, including in recent years as an example of early science fiction by women.[4][5][6] Ellis modeled Emil Mundson, the mad scientist character in "Creatures of Light", on engineer and professor Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Ellis's "Slaves of the Dust" is set in Brazil, and again involves an unethical scientist with an isolated laboratory, breeding chimeras.[1]
Personal life
editSophie Wenzel married George W. Ellis, sometime after 1918 and before 1924.[7] She died in 1984, at age 90.
References
edit- ^ a b Everett Franklin Bleiler, Richard Bleiler, eds., Science-fiction: The Gernsback Years (Kent State University Press 1998): 104. ISBN 9780873386043
- ^ Lindsey Hobbs, "Women of the Pulps: Spicy Covers and Startling Stories" The Ultimate History Project.
- ^ Jane L. Donawerth, "Science Fiction by Women in Early Pulps, 1926-1930" in Jane L. Donawerth, ed., Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference (Syracuse University Press 1994): 137. ISBN 9780815626206
- ^ Mike Ashley, The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers (Dover Publications 2015). ISBN 9780486803401
- ^ Eric Leif Davin, Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965 (Lexington Books 2006): 85, 232. ISBN 9780739112670
- ^ Jane Donawerth, Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction (Syracuse University Press 1997): 14. ISBN 9780815603955
- ^ "Heard in a Grocery" Buffalo Commercial (November 24, 1924): 4. via Newspapers.com
External links
edit- Sophie Wenzel Ellis in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFB).
- Stories by Sophie Wenzel Ellis on Librivox.
- Lisa Yaszek, Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction (Ohio State University Press 2008). ISBN 9780814210758