Smith, Evelyn E
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1922-2000) US crossword-puzzle compiler and author, who wrote at least five gothic romances as by Delphine C Lyons, some of which were supernatural; she began publishing sf with "Tea Tray in the Sky" in Galaxy for September 1952, and for about a decade published actively in the magazines; after about 1960 she appeared there only infrequently. For her crossword story "BAXBR/DAXBR" (in Time to Come, anth 1954, ed August Derleth; the two alien words should properly appear "crossed"), see Games and Sports. Selections of her short work have been assembled as Evelyn E Smith Resurrected: Selected Stories of Evelyn E Smith (coll 2010) and The Best of Evelyn E Smith: The Two Suns of Morcali and Other Stories (coll 2012).
Smith's first novel, The Perfect Planet (1962), a Satire, is set on a planet which was once a health farm and is now a Utopia run by women. Valley of Shadows (1968) as Delphine C Lyons is a fantasy. Unpopular Planet (1975) – no connection to the first book – is a comparatively ambitious work, written in a sometimes passable imitation of eighteenth-century typographical (if not stylistic) practices and presenting the memoirs, set down long after most of the events recounted, of a human from an overpopulated Dystopian Earth, whose contacts with Aliens trying to maintain the planet as a breeding-ground for humans and other species have led to picaresque adventures, some of them sexual. The Copy Shop (1985) – again an element of Satire is mildly evident – places some Extraterrestrials in New York City; they are not noticed. [JC/DRL]
see also: Colonization of Other Worlds; Women SF Writers.
Evelyn E Smith
born New York: 25 July 1922
died New York: 4 July 2000
works
- The Perfect Planet (New York: Avalon Books, 1962) [hb/Ed Emshwiller]
- Valley of Shadows (New York: Lancer Books, 1968) as by Delphine C Lyons [pb/]
- Phantom at Lost Lake (New York: Magnum Books, 1970) as by Delphine C Lyons [pb/]
- Unpopular Planet (New York: Dell Books, 1975) [pb/]
- The Copy Shop (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1985) [hb/nonpictorial]
- Sentry of the Sky (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [dos: first appeared February 1961 Galaxy: pb/Lloyd Birmingham]
collections and stories
- The Blue Tower (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2007) [story: ebook: first appeared February 1958 Galaxy: na/]
- The Doorway (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared September 1955 Fantastic Universe: na/]
- The Most Sentimental Man (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared August 1957 Fantastic Universe: na/]
- The Venus Trap (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared June 1956 Galaxy: na/]
- Helpfully Yours (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared February 1955 Galaxy: na/]
- My Fair Planet (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared March 1958 Galaxy: na/]
- Once a Greech (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared April 1957 Galaxy: na/]
- Collector's Item (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared December 1954 Galaxy: na/]
- Evelyn E Smith Resurrected: Selected Stories of Evelyn E Smith (Madison, Wisconsin: Resurrected Press, 2010) [coll: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- The Best of Evelyn E Smith: The Two Suns of Morcali and Other Stories (Vancleave, Mississippi: Ramble House/Dancing Tuatara Press, 2012) [coll: pb/Gavin O'Keefe]
links
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