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Matson, Norman

(1892-1965) US author now best known for his completion, after the death of Thorne Smith, of the latter's The Passionate Witch (1941), capturing Smith's melancholy, mildly madcap, sentimentally erotic style very neatly, despite touches of unSmithian sourness. Matson also wrote a sequel, Bats in the Belfry (1943). A film, I Married a Witch (1942), and the television series Bewitched (1964-1972) were loosely based on the books. Earlier Matson wrote a fantasy, Flecker's Magic (1926; vt Enchanted Beggar 1959), also concerning a witch, and an sf novel, Doctor Fogg (1929). Fogg, having constructed a radio receiver capable of listening in on other worlds and attracted the interest of a young woman who has (perhaps coincidentally) been sent via Matter Transmission to Earth from a distant planet, falls in love with the girl while extracting information-filled Communications from space. But, when the US Government decides it must control all these scientific findings for security reasons, he destroys his device. [JC]

Norman Heggem Matson [Haghejm has also been given for his middle name]

born Grand Rapids, Michigan: October 1892

died New York: 1965

works

series

Passionate Witch

• The Passionate Witch (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1941) with Thorne Smith [The Passionate Witch: illus/hb/Herbert Roese]
• Bats in the Belfry (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943) [The Passionate Witch: illus/hb/Herbert Roese]

individual titles

• Flecker's Magic (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926) [hb/]
  • Enchanted Beggar (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Lippincott, 1959) [vt of the above: hb/]
• Doctor Fogg (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929) [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 14:47 pm on 19 April 2024.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/matson_norman>