SF authors born 1864-73: 1869

1. Stephen Leacock
2. Booth Tarkington

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Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)

English-born Canadian economist, humorist. Taught at McGill. Leacock was both a social conservative and a partisan Conservative. He opposed women's rights (including the right to vote), and disliked non-Anglo-Saxon immigration. He was, however, a supporter of social welfare legislation. He was a staunch champion of the British Empire, and went on lecture tours to further the cause.

Early in his career Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports to supplement (and ultimately exceed) his regular income. His stories, first published in magazines in Canada and the United States and later in novel form, became extremely popular around the world. It was said in 1911 that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Also, between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most popular humourist in the English-speaking world.

1914-23

* The Hohenzollerns in America: With the Bolsheviks and Berlin and Other Impossibilities (John Lane: London, 1919). TK

* Nonsense Novels (John Lane: London and New York, 1920). TK

* Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels (John Lane: London, 1920). TK

* "The Iron Man and the Tin Woman," in The Iron Man and the Tin Woman with Other Such Futurities: A Book of Little Sketches of To-Day and To-Morrow (John Lane: London, 1929). Sketches. Two human-formed robots, one male and one female, carry on a programmed courthip via battery-powered phonograph mechanisms and perforated tapes. The robots, however, are operating as proxies for two human lovers, as a jeu d'esprit.

* Other stories in The Iron Man and the Tin Woman with Other Such Futurities: A Book of Little Sketches of To-Day and To-Morrow (John Lane: London, 1929) TK.

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Booth Tarkington (TK)

TK