Smile, R Elton
Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
Working name of US physician and author Elton R Smilie (1819-1889), known for advances in the practice of anaesthetics. He is of sf interest for two intriguing (if confusedly told) tales. In The Manatitlans; Or, a Record of Recent Scientific Explorations in the Andea Lat Plata, S A (1877), a white expedition travels up the Paraguay River where it discovers a Lost Race descended from the Romans; they in turn introduce the expedition to a race of tiny humanoids (see Great and Small), the Manatitlans, now located here though at times intermittently resident in Europe; their educational system is of interest. Investigations and Experience of M Shawtinback, at Saar Soong, Sumatra (1879) anonymous presents a series of letters describing an Apes as Human race of Kubu Orangs in Sumatra; the text is a Satire of Darwinian Evolution, as the Kubus are created by surgical means, their ordeals happily lessened by the use of an anaesthetic provided (apparently) by the true Smilie. [JC]
Elton Romeo Smilie
born Wakefield, Massachusetts: 1819
died San Francisco, California: 1889
works
- The Manatitlans; Or, a Record of Recent Scientific Explorations in the Andea Lat Plata, S A (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Printed at the Riverside Press, 1877) [the title page of some copies gives an imaginary publisher: "Buenos Ayres: Calla Derécho, Imprenta De Razon": hb/]
- Investigations and Experience of M Shawtinback, at Saar Soong, Sumatra: A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans" (San Francisco, California: Joseph Winterburn and Company, 1879) anonymous [hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry