Erle Cox (15 August 1873 – 20 November 1950) was an Australian journalist and science fiction writer.
Erle Cox | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Erle Cox 15 August 1873 Emerald Hill, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 20 November 1950 (aged 77) Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Genre | science fiction |
| Notable works | Out of the Silence |
Life
editCox was born at Emerald Hill, Victoria, on 15 August 1873, the second son of Ross Cox, who had emigrated from his native Dublin as a youth during the early gold rush days of the 1850s. He was educated at Castlemaine Grammar School and Melbourne Grammar School. Following school, Cox worked as a wine-grower near Rutherglen, Victoria, before moving to Tasmania. On 24 December 1901 he married Mary Ellen Kilborn and some time later the couple settled in Melbourne.[1]
In 1921, Cox joined the editorial staff of The Argus newspaper as a writer of special articles and book reviewer under the pen name 'The Chiel'; later he was the principal movie critic. In 1946 he joined the staff of The Age after being given notice from The Argus.[1]
Cox died in 1950 after a long illness.
Works
editThree early works were published in the Lone Hand Magazine: Reprieve, Diplomacy and The Social Code.
- Out of the Silence, his best known novel, is set in Australia, and involves the discovery of a gigantic, buried sphere, containing the accumulated knowledge of a past civilization. It was published by The Argus in weekly instalments over a six-month period in 1919. The first Australian edition in book form was published by Vidler, in 1925. The same year a British edition appeared (Hamilton), and in 1928 an American edition (Rae D. Henkle). In 1934, the book was adapted to a comic-strip format by an artist identified only as Hix, likely Reginald Ernest Hicks.[2] This pictorial version was published daily in The Argus in 120 episodes from August to December. In the same year, the novel was dramatised for radio presentation as a 25-part serial. The SF Encyclopedia notes that: "The novel exhibits some racist overtones"[3] in reference to the eugenically inspired character Odi, who brought about the supremacy of a white race by devising a ray that killed only black people. The device of a buried sphere from a lost, advanced civilization clearly influenced René Barjavel's best-settling 1966 French science fiction novel La Nuit des temps, translated into English as The Ice People (1971).
- Fools Harvest was published as a fourteen-part serial in The Argus, in 1938, and was published in book form the following year by Robertson Mullen with two extra chapters.
- The Missing Angel, the third and final book by Cox, was published by Robertson Mullen in 1947.
References
editFurther reading
edit- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 119. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
External links
edit- Out of the Silence at Project Gutenberg Australia
- The Missing Angel at Project Gutenberg Australia
- Read Chapter 1 of the original edition of Out of the Silence from the Lost Worlds Australia Anthology. Archived 23 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine
- Tompkins, Alan J. "Erle Cox and Out of the Silence". Fossickerbooks. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. – reprinted from The Somerset Gazette (no. 5, Jan 1971)
- Erle Cox at Library of Congress, with 3 library catalogue records
- Erle Cox at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database