S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: FEARN, John Francis Russell
Aged: 52
Born: June 5, 1908
Where: Worsley, Lancashire, ENGLAND
Died: September 18, 1960
Where: _ _ _
Interred: _ _ _
Married: None known
John Russell Fearn
"Polton Cross"..."Vargo Statten"..."Thornton Ayre"
Unlike most writers of fantasy and science fiction, John Russell Fearn died at the height of his popularity, having sold over 5 million books in the 1950's. Traditionally British in attitude and demeanor, Fearn was a stalwart of the American pulp magazine and was highly prolific, especially in the longer forms. In the 1930's he was known in science fiction by three names: John Russell Fearn, Polton Cross, and Thornton Ayre. But it would be in the 1950's as Vargo Statten that Fearn would achieve fame and financial success. Sales for Statten paperbacks in post-war England and, surprisingly, among the French and French Canadians, were phenomenal.
Fearn lived with his mother in Blackpool where he worked as a projectionist in a local cinema. Due to ill health John was exempt from World War II service and, after the war, he also augmented income as a cotton salesman. He was actively interested in fandom and enjoyed numerous encounters with that sub-culture. But for a while, when the American pulp market died, Fearn's writing moved from pulp fiction into open imitation of Edgar Rice Burroughs, both in creating a jungle hero, Anjani, as Earl Titan and authoring a series of Martian tales as Clayton Drew.
Encouraged by limited success in the novel field, Fearn began rewriting and expanding his sf pulp novelettes and novellas, creating short novels for young adults. These were mostly published in digest form by Scion Ltd. under the pen-names of Vargo Stratten and Volsted Gridban. A quick look at the bibliography below for the 1950's will amaze you...especially when you consider that Fearn wrote an equal amount of westerns and mysteries.
Fearn's most famous series was The Golden Amazon which expanded from four novelettes into 26 novels (24 published), promoting a feminine heroine. And he was noted for a novel that was made into an early sci-fi horror film, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, which was one of the more successful of that time period. The only other British writer selling to the American pulps as often as Fearn and in the same time period was John Wyndham Harris. But Fearn's stories were only sparsely collected or anthologized and are only recently being reprinted by Gryphon Books.
PEN NAMES: Thornton Ayre, Dennis Clive, John Cotton, Polton Cross, Clayton Drew, Douglas Dodd, Sheridan Drew, Volsted Gridban, Conrad G. Holt, Preston James, Frank Jones, Nat Karta, Mick McCoy, Jed McNab, Dom Passante, Laurence F. Rose (aka Francis Rose), Frank Russell, John Russell, Vargo Statten, & Ephriam Winiki.
House-names used by Fearn: Astron del Martia, Volsted Gridban
(also used by E. C. Tubb), Paul Lorraine, & Bryan Shaw (E. C. Tubb
used Brian Shaw).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine
here.
OBITUARY:
