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Barrett, William E

(1900-1986) US amateur pilot and author, many of whose stories were nonfantastic recounts of World War One combat; he had published Flight from Youth (1939) before the war, later incorporating it into The Edge of Things (coll 1960), whose three stories all relate in some way to flying. Much earlier, he began publishing short stories with "The Music of Madness" for Weird Tales, March 1926. His sf novel, The Fools of Time (1963), unconvincingly posits an Immortality Drug based on cancer. Lady of the Lotus (1975) is a fantasy about the Buddha which focuses on his wife. In his last years Barrett turned to Christian hagiography. [JC]

William Edmund Barrett

born New York: 16 November 1900

died Denver, Colorado: 14 September 1986

works

• Flight from Youth (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J B Lippincott Co, 1939) [hb/]
• The Edge of Things (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1960) [coll: incorporating Flight from Youth: hb/Marlene Rothkin]
• The Fools of Time (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963) [hb/]
• The Shape of Illusion (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972) [hb/]
• Lady of the Lotus (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975) [fantasy: hb/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 10:26 am on 21 April 2026.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/barrett_william_e>