Evans, Henry Ridgely
Entry updated 31 July 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1861-1949) US amateur magician, journalist and author, much of whose career was spent investigating (and in general debunking) occult lore and religious bodies, including Theosophy. Edgar Allan Poe and Baron von Kempelen's Chess-Playing Automaton (1939) analyses the famous chess-playing machine (operated in fact by a human inside the apparatus), which Edgar Allan Poe speculated about in an essay, "Maelzel's Chess Player" (April 1836 Southern Literary Messenger). Evans is of some sf interest for The House of the Sphinx: A Novel (1907), in which an Egyptian occultist uses a Time Viewer to entrap his victims, whom he also hypnotizes (see Hypnosis) and secrets away in bad places like the eponymous English mansion. [JC]
Henry Ridgely Evans
born Baltimore, Maryland: 7 November 1861
died Baltimore, Maryland: 1949
works (selected)
- The House of the Sphinx: A Novel (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1907) [hb/uncredited]
nonfiction
- Edgar Allan Poe and Baron von Kempelen's Chess-Playing Automaton (Kenton, Ohio: International Brotherhood of Magicians, 1939) [nonfiction: Edgar Allan Poe: binding unknown/]
links
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