Nictzin Dyalhis

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Nictzin Dyalhis
Occupation Short story writer, chemist
Genres Fantasy, Science fiction

Nictzin Wilstone Dyalhis (1873 – 1942) was an American chemist and short story writer who specialized in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. He wrote as Nictzin Dyalhis. During his lifetime he attained a measure of celebrity as a writer for the pulp fiction magazine Weird Tales.

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[edit] Life

Firm facts about Dyalhis's life are few, as he coupled his limited output of fiction with a penchant for personal privacy and an avoidance of publicity. His year of birth, usually cited (with a question mark) as 1879, was long uncertain, and he was speculated to have been born in England—or Pima, Arizona. His World War I draft registration card and U. S. Census records establish his birthdate as June 4, 1873, and his state of birth as Massachusetts. His father, reportedly of Welsh extraction, was also born in Massachusetts, and his mother in Guatemala. Even Dyalhis's name is uncertain; in his stories, Dyalhis played with common spellings, so that "Earth" becomes Aerth and "Venus," Venhez, and he was thought to have possibly done the same with his own name, turning the prosaic "Dallas" into the exotic Dyalhis. According to L. Sprague de Camp, however, Dyalhis was his actual surname, inherited from his Welsh father, and his given name Nictzin was also authentic, bestowed on him due to his father's fascination with the Aztecs.[1] His draft card establishes his full name as Nictzin Wilstone Dyalhis.

Among the imaginative readers of his stories, Dyalhis acquired a reputation for possessing unusual abilities and an exotic history as an adventurer and world traveller. The known facts of his life are more prosaic. At some time during his youth he lost one eye, as noted on his draft card. He worked as a chemist, and married Harriet Lord; in 1920 the couple was living with her mother in Sugar Grove, Warren County, Pennsylvania. Harriet was an inmate of the Warren State Hospital in 1930, while Nictzin was living in Maryland in the early 1940s, reportedly in difficult financial circumstances. He died in Salisbury, Maryland in 1942.

[edit] Literary career

In a field of popular literature characterized by prolific production, Dyalhis gained a kind of reverse fame by the extreme paucity of his output: he published only eight stories in Weird Tales over a fifteen-year period, with a ninth appearing posthumously, four decades after his death. In the verdict of one SF commentator, Dyalhis "established a reputation in Weird Tales out of proportion to either the quality or quantity of his contributions."[2] Yet his stories were very popular with readers, and a few, notably "The Sapphire Goddess," have been featured in anthologies.

Dyalhis's earliest stories, including "When the Green Star Waned" and its sequel "The Oath of Hul Jok," are fairly firmly in the science fiction genre; the former is sometimes credited for introducing the term "blaster" for a ray gun. Yet his overall output is most easily and readily categorized as occult fantasy, involving spiritual travel on the astral plane, journeys to Hell, and reincarnation.[3]

[edit] Bibliography

  • "When the Green Star Waned" (April 1925; reprinted January 1929)
  • "The Eternal Conflict" (October 1925)
  • "The Dark Lore" (October 1927)
  • "The Oath of Hul Jok" (September 1928)
  • "The Red Witch" (April 1932)
  • "The Sapphire Goddess" (February 1934)
  • "The Sea-Witch" (December 1937; reprinted July 1953)
  • "Heart of Atlantan" (September 1940)
  • "The Sapphire Siren" (Spring 1981)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: the Makers of Heroic Fantasy, Sawk City, Wisc., Arkham House, 1976; p. 301.
  2. ^ Michael Ashley, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2000; p. 43.
  3. ^ John Clute and John Grant, editors, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1999; p. 305.

[edit] Sources

  • Jaffery, Sheldon, and Fred Cook. The Collector's Index to Weird Tales. Bowling Green, OH, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985.
  • Moskowitz, Sam. "Nictzin Dyalhis: Mysterious Master of Fantasy." In Echoes of Valor III, edited by Karl Edward Wagner, Tor, 1991.
  • 1920 United States Federal Census.
  • 1930 United States Federal Census.
  • U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.