Erle Cox

Erle Cox (15 August 1873 – 20 November 1950) was an Australian journalist and science fiction writer.

Cox was born at Emerald Hill, Victoria, an 15 August 1873, the second son of Ross Cox, who had emigrated from his native Dublin as a youth during the early gold rush days of the 1850s. He was educated at Castlemaine Grammar School and Melbourne Grammar School.

In 1921, Cox joined the editorial staff of The Argus newspaper as a writer of special articles and book reviewer; later he was the principal movie critic. In 1946 he joined the staff of The Age.

Cox died in 1950 after a long illness.

Works

Three early works were published in the Lone Hand Magazine--Reprieve, Diplomacy and The Social Code.

• Out of the Silence, his best known novel, is set in Australia, and involves the discovery of a gigantic, buried sphere, containing the accumulated knowledge of a past civilization. It was published by The Argus in weekly instalments over a six month period in 1919. The first Australian edition in book form was published by Vidler, in 1925. The same year a British edition appeared (Hamilton), and in 1928 an American edition (Rae D. Henkle). In 1934 the book was adapted to a comic-strip format by an artist identified only as Hix. This pictorial version was published daily in The Argus in 120 episodes. In the same year the novel was dramatised for radio presentation as a 25 part serial.

• Fools Harvest was published as a fourteen part serial in The Argus, in 1938, and was published in book form the following year by Robertson Mullen with two extra chapters.

• The Missing Angel, the third and final book by Cox, was published by Robertson Mullen in 1947.

External links

• Out of the Silence at Project Gutenberg Australia
• The Missing Angel at Project Gutenberg Australia
• Erle Cox and Out of the Silence
• Erle Cox at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

References

• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 119. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.