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Sheehan, Perley Poore

Entry updated 1 December 2024. Tagged: Author.

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(1875-1943) US screenwriter, journalist and author responsible for much magazine fiction, though he was initially best known for a play, Efficiency: A Play in One Act (August 1917 McClure's Magazine; vt "Blood and Iron: A Play in One Act" October 1917 Strand; 1917 chap) with Robert Hobart Davis (1869-1942), in which a German Mad Scientist transforms the fatally wounded Soldier 241 into the first unmistakably modern physically "improved" Cyborg in sf, in order better to wage World War One against civilization, though in the event the cyborg kills the (for propaganda reasons, necessarily German) "Emperor", to stop the war. Sheehan also specialized in sensational romances and detective fiction, mainly in the 1920s, several titles, like Those Who Walk in Darkness (1917), appearing first in book form.

Some of his work for the magazines has been assembled. The Abyss of Wonders (January 1915 Argosy; 1953) mixes Theosophy and superscience in its tale of a Lost Race in the Gobi Desert. The Red Road to Shamballah (1932-1933 Thrilling Adventures; 2008) carries its white protagonist to Tibet, and thence, now magic-sword-bearing, to perhaps conquer China. The Kwa sequence, of which Kwa of the Ape People (January 1933 Thrilling Adventures as by Paul Regard; 2010) first reached book form long after the author's death, is much evocative of the Tarzan universe (see also Apes as Human). The Leopard Man and Other Stories (coll 2011) assembles the novel-length "The Leopard Man" (April-June 1932 Thrilling Adventures) and other similar tales published in the same magazine in 1932-1933. [JC]

Perley Poore Sheehan

born Cincinnati, Ohio: 7 June 1875

died Sierra Madre, California: 30 September 1943

works

series

Kwa

individual titles

Some further titles have been listed elsewhere, but have not been satisfactorily traced. The Checklist is therefore selected.

about the author

  • Virgil S Utter. Perley Poore Sheehan: Shadow Master: A Working Bibliography (Leeds, West Yorkshire: Galactic Central Publications, 2002) [bibliography: chap: in the publisher's Bibliographies for the Avid Reader series: pb/nonpictorial]
  • Kate Macdonald. "The First Cyborg and First World War Bodies as Anti-War Propaganda" (4 July 2016 Journal of War and Culture Studies) [ebook: mag/]

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