Readers of SF seldom wonder where the genre came from. Some few might trace things back to Frankenstein or H. G. Wells. Others might point at Hugo Gernsback or “Doc” Smith, but the name of Edward Page Mitchell is seldom mentioned in such conversations. In The Crystal Man, SF historian and editor Sam Moskowitz presents the work of this forgotten 19th-century magazine folklorist and SF author. (A historian of SF, Moskowitz himself is nearly forgotten today; his works Explorers of the Infinite and Seekers of Tomorrow should be better known.)[1]
A Maine native, Mitchell lived in several places as a child and eventually settled in New York. After his “Back From That Bourne” appeared in the Sun, he sold stories on a regular basis. Since they appeared without a byline and were not always labeled as fiction(!), tracking down Mitchell’s work was extremely difficult when Moskowitz decided to do so. Mitchell continued to write stories for the Sun and Scribner’s, becoming editor-in-chief of the Sun in 1903. He was editor when the Sun published the famous “Is There A Santa Claus” editorial in response to a letter sent by Virginia O’Hanlon. He died in 1927.
So, how are the stories? The best known is probably “The Tachypomp”, lauded by Moskowitz as the first mention of faster-than-light travel[2]. However, rather than being on a spacecraft, the machine uses the “racecar-on-a-train” effect. The titular tale deals with a man who becomes invisible via mad science, along with his clothes (unlike the later Wells tale). In “The Balloon Tree” the tree is a lost-world “intelligent alien,” and it saves the narrator. And so on. The fantasy stories, as we’d call them, are often reminiscent of Poe, who was as important to Mitchell as to many other authors. They are often well-written, with “The Shadow on the Fancher Twins” an example: the twins are linked by a mysterious power, and this anticipates the several stories of twins having telepathy, which became common in SF at one point.
So, Mitchell, as interpreted by Moskowitz, was a SF/fantasy pioneer, an inventor of key concepts which were later picked up and developed by other writers at greater length, and with more narrative authority. His ideas were first-rate; he may well have inspired Wells, Burroughs, and other writers. The excellent historical detective work which has uncovered his authorship remains among the landmarks in SF historiography, even if the stories themselves are not the best writing that the Sun ever featured. Recommended for enthusiasts of SF history.
[1] As well as Under the Moons of Mars, an anthology of early sword-and-planet work.
[2] Here. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11437/pg11437-images.html
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