Edmond Moore Hamilton American science fiction writer Date of Birth: 21.10.1904 Country: USA

Biography of Edmond Moore Hamilton

Edmond Moore Hamilton, an American science fiction writer, was born on October 21, 1904, in Youngstown, Ohio. He is considered one of the pioneers of the "space opera" genre in science fiction. Hamilton was the third child in his family. His father worked as a caricaturist for a local newspaper, while his mother was a school teacher. When Hamilton was born, his father left his job at the newspaper and bought a small farm in Poland, Ohio. In 1911, the family moved to Newcastle, Pennsylvania, where his father found new employment.

Hamilton attended Westminster College in East Wilmington, where he graduated at the age of 14. His debut in science fiction came with the story "The Monster-God of Mamurth," published in the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales. In that issue, Hamilton ranked second in popularity, only surpassed by his idol Abraham Merritt, and pushing the popular horror writer Howard Lovecraft to third place. Hamilton quickly became one of the key members of the group of writers published in Weird Tales and gathered by the magazine's editor, Farnsworth Wright. This group also included renowned writers such as Howard Lovecraft and Robert Howard. Between 1926 and 1948, Hamilton had 79 works published in Weird Tales, making him one of the most prolific writers in the genre (only surpassed in publication frequency by Seabury Quinn and August Derleth).

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hamilton's stories were published in all American pulp magazines that featured science fiction. His story "The Island of Unreason" (Wonder Stories, May 1933) won the Jules Verne Award for the best science fiction story of the year, which was the first science fiction award determined by reader voting and served as a precursor to the Hugo Awards established in 1953.

During this time, Hamilton was highly respected and considered a veteran among the writers of Weird Tales. In the late 1930s, several outstanding science fiction stories by Hamilton were published in Weird Tales, with "He That Hath Wings" (1938) being the most popular and frequently reprinted. Hamilton then immersed himself in creating a series of stories featuring the superhero Curt Newton. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hamilton single-handedly wrote hundreds of stories within this series, initially published in magazines and later compiled into 13 "novels." The idea for this series was suggested to Hamilton by editor Mort Weisinger, who had previously been involved in the creation of the legendary superhero Superman.

In 1946, Edmond Hamilton married fellow writer Leigh Brackett, who also wrote science fiction. Three years after their marriage, the Hamiltons moved to the eastern United States, to a farm in Kinsman, Ohio, owned by distant relatives of Hamilton. In the post-war years, Hamilton's popularity declined. However, he managed to publish several successful novels, including "Starwolf" (1966) and the Starwolf trilogy ("Starwolf I: Weapon from Beyond" (1967), "Starwolf II: Closed Worlds" (1968), "Starwolf III: World of the Starwolves" (1968)).

On February 1, 1977, Edmond Hamilton passed away before the publication of his final collection, compiled by his wife, called "The Best of Edmond Hamilton" (1977). His works "The Star-Stealers" (1927) and "Within the Nebula" (1929) were the first science fiction stories to introduce the concept of the Galactic Federation. In "The Universe Wreckers" (1935), Hamilton formulated the hypothesis of an expanding universe for the first time in literary fiction. Even before the exploration of space by humanity, Hamilton speculated in the story "Who Goes There?" (1933) that the study of the Solar System would be ineffective due to its high cost.

One of the earliest examples of functional robots is described in Hamilton's story "The Metal Giants" (1926). His collection of stories, "Horror on the Asteroid" (1936), was one of the first hardcover books of modern American science fiction.