Cournos, John
Entry updated 26 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1881-1966) Working name, seemingly legalized, of Russian-born translator, anthologist, poet and author Igor Grigorievich Korshun, which Cournos preferred to render as Johann Gregorevich Korshun to accord more closely to his Ukrainian background; in US or UK from around 1891, in US from 1931. He is of some sf interest for London Under the Bolsheviks: A Londoner's Dream on Returning from Petrograd (1919 chap), which describes an impoverished Near Future London under Bolshevik tyranny, with H G Wells in jail; a counter-revolution, headed by General Douglas Haig (1861-1928), ends in disaster. The New Candide (1924), a Satire, is explicitly and very closely modelled on Voltaire's Candide (1759).
Cournos's Anthologies included a high proportion of fantasy, with some sf [for titles see Checklist below]. [JC]
Johann Gregorevich Korshun
born Kiev [now Kyiv], Russian Empire [now Ukraine]: 6 March 1881
died New York: 27 August 1966
works (highly selected)
- London Under the Bolsheviks: A Londoner's Dream on Returning from Petrograd (London: Russian Liberation Committee, 1919) [chap: pb/nonpictorial]
- The New Candide (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924) [hb/uncredited]
works as editor
series
Best British Short Stories
- The Best British Short Stories of 1922 (Boston, Massachusetts: Small, Maynard and Company, 1922) with Edward J O'Brien [anth: Best British Short Stories: hb/]
- The Best British Short Stories of 1923 (Boston, Massachusetts: Small, Maynard and Company, 1923) with Edward J O'Brien [anth: Best British Short Stories: hb/]
individual titles as editor
- American Short Stories of the Nineteenth Century (London: J M Dent and Sons, 1930) [anth: hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry