McDonald, Raymond
Entry updated 31 July 2024. Tagged: Author.
Joint pseudonym of Canadian author Raymond Alfred Léger (1884-1934) and Canadian lawyer, politician, inventor and writer Edward Richard McDonald (1871-1952), whose sf novel, The Mad Scientist: A Tale of the Future (1908), features the increasingly dangerous – or effective – interventions of the eponymous Mad Scientist in the dealings of US businessmen and of the US Government itself. The scientist's inclinations are socialist but, surprisingly for 1908, the authors are ambiguous about whether or not he is a menace pure and simple; and the protagonists of the tale find themselves again and again having to cope with uncomfortable revelations – from fraud to conspiracies with German strikebreakers – brought into the open by the scientist's numerous Inventions, which include a kind of Antigravity device capable of levitating battleships at sea. [JC]
Raymond Alfred Léger
born Shediac, New Brunswick: 21 December 1884
died Shediac, New Brunswick: 25 February 1934
Edward Richard McDonald
born Pointe-du-Chêne, New Brunswick: 24 September 1871
died Shediac, New Brunswick: 16 February 1952
works
- The Mad Scientist: A Tale of the Future (New York: Cochrane Publishing Co, 1908) [hb/]
- The Laughing Elf (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Basil Blackwell, 1922) [chap: illus/hb/Roy Meldrum]
links
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