Du Bois, Theodora
Entry updated 4 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1890-1986) US playwright and author whose first play, The Sleeping Beauty: A Play With or Without Pageantry (1919 chap), is fantasy; except for The Traveling Toys (1934), a Tale of Circulation, her several books for younger children are not listed below. Du Bois remains best known for her many detective novels, often on medical themes, and for several fantasies, including her first novel, The Devil's Spoon (1930), in which a young devil takes over a human being in order to fight against Satan's plans for the world [for Devils and Satan see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below; see also Gods and Demons]; The Devil and Destiny (1948), another tale about possession; and Sarah Hall's Sea God (1952), a Slick Fantasy at novel length [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below].
Murder Strikes an Atomic Unit (1946) verges on sf, as does High Tension (1950), in which the very Near Future neo-Nazi Loyalty and Friendship Organization, based in New York, attempts to destabilize America. Of more direct sf interest is Solution T-25 (1951), the USSR wins World War Three with the use of nuclear Weapons, occupying the USA. Afterwards, an underground resistance, faking collaboration with the occupation forces, develops Solution T-25, a Drug which dissolves the Soviet leadership's authoritarian personality structures, turning them into benign humorists incapable of commanding their forces. An impolitic frankness about McCarthyism in Seeing Red (1954) caused her publisher, Doubleday and Company, to drop her, and after this Cold-War cancellation her career slowed nearly to a stop. [JC]
Theodora Brenton Eliot McCormick du Bois
born Brooklyn, New York: 14 September 1890
died New York: 1 February 1986
works (selected)
- The Sleeping Beauty: A Play With or Without Pageantry (Yonkers, New YorK: for the author, 1919) [play: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
- The Devil's Spoon (New York: Frederick A Stokes, 1930) [hb/]
- The Traveling Toys (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Penn Publishing Company, 1934) [illus/hb/Fern Bisel Peat]
- Armed with a New Terror (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1936) [hb/]
- Murder Strikes an Atomic Unit (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1946) [hb/uncredited]
- The Devil and Destiny (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1948) [hb/]
- High Tension (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1950) [hb/Irv Docktor]
- Solution T-25 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1951) [hb/Richard Powers]
- Sarah Hall's Sea God (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1952) [hb/Paul Valentino]
links
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Devils; Satan; Slick Fantasy.
- Picture Gallery
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