Bridges, T C
Entry updated 18 June 2019. Tagged: Author.
(1868-1944) French-born UK author, in Florida for some years before 1894; he also wrote as Christopher Beck. A prolific author of boys' fiction from 1899 or earlier, including some Sexton Blake Library stories, he wrote several sf tales for the oldest segment of his audience. Of greatest interest are The Secret of the Waters (1917), a tale set Under the Sea, where young lads in a submarine encounter Monsters; Martin Crusoe: A Boy's Adventure on Wizard Island (1920), which takes young Martin Vaile to the eponymous island, a relic of Atlantis; Men of the Mist (1922 The Children's Magazine; 1923), a Lost Race tale set in Alaska featuring creatures typical of Prehistoric SF; People of the Chasm (1923) as by Christopher Beck, another Lost Race tale featuring giant insects and Norsemen in a clement hollow at the North Pole; The City of No Escape (1925), a Lost World inhabited – in a very early, possibly the first, use of the term in English-language fiction after the 1923 translation of Karel Čapek's R.U.R. – by Robot-like creatures; and The Death Star (1940), a rather grim tale set on a depopulated Earth. [JC]
Thomas Charles Bridges
born Bagnères de Bigorre, France: 22 August 1868
died 26 May 1944
works
- The Crimson Airplane (London: C Arthur Pearson, 1913) as by Christopher Beck [hb/Guy Lipscombe]
- The Secret of the Waters (London: George Newnes, 1917) [in the publisher's "Adventure" Library series: pb/Sherie]
- The Brigand of the Air (London: G Arthur Pearson, 1920) as by Christopher Beck [hb/Watson Charlton]
- Martin Crusoe: A Boy's Adventure on Wizard Island (London: George G Harrap, 1920) [hb/G Henry Evison]
- The People of the Chasm (London: G Arthur Pearson, 1923) as by Christopher Beck [illus/hb/Thomas Somerfield]
- Men of the Mist (London: George G Harrap, 1923) [first appeared 1922 The Children's Magazine: illus/hb/G Henry Evison]
- The Hidden City (London: Collins, 1923) [hb/]
- The City of No Escape (London: George Newnes, 1925) [hb/]
- Mountains of the Moon (Frederick Warne and Company, 1935) [hb/uncredited]
- The Death Star (London: Collins, 1940) [hb/J MacGillivray]
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