Perkins, Frederick B
Entry updated 28 November 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1828-1899) US librarian, editor and author, who often spelled his first name Frederic, and also wrote as by Pharaoh Budlong; father of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. President Greeley, President Hoffman, and the Resurrection of the Ring: A History of the Next Four Years ... Written in the Second Week of November, 1876 (dated 1876 but 1872 chap) as by Pharaoh Budlong is a spoof Future History describing the course of the American presidency for four years after the election of Horace Greeley (1811-1872) [in reality, Greeley, candidate for the Liberal Republican Party, lost the 1872 election and soon died from the stress]. Scrope; Or, the Lost Library: a Novel of New York and Hartford (1874) is perhaps the first American bibliomystery; there is no fantastic element in the tale.
Perkins is of interest for some of the tales assembled in Devil-Puzzlers and Other Stories (coll 1877), perhaps most significantly "The Manu-factory", which first appeared in Tales for Travellers: Stand and Wait and Other Tales (anth 1875 chap) edited by Edward Everett Hale. It describes the Invention of a hypnotically plausible Automaton whose speeches are rendered in strongly Satirical terms. The remaining stories here collected – "Devil-Puzzlers" and "The Compensation Office" – are fantasy. [JC]
Frederick Beecher Perkins
born Hartford, Connecticut: 27 September 1828
died Morristown, New Jersey: 27 January 1899
works (highly selected)
- President Greeley, President Hoffman, and the Resurrection of the Ring: A History of the Next Four Years ... Written in the Second Week of November, 1876 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England News Company, 1872) as by Pharaoh Budlong [chap: title page gives Budlongton, no state indicated, "Printed for the Purchasers", with year of publication as 1876: pb/]
- Devil-Puzzlers and Other Stories (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1877) [coll: hb/]
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