Otis Adelbert Kline

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otis Adelbert Kline
Otis Adelbert Kline, date unknown
Born	(1891-07-01)July 1, 1891 Chicago, Illinois
Died	October 24, 1946(1946-10-24) (aged 55)
Occupation	Novelist, literary agent
Genres	Science fiction

Otis Adelbert Kline (1891–1946) born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price.

Kline and Burroughs

Kline is best known for an apocryphal literary feud with fellow author Edgar Rice Burroughs, in which he supposedly raised the latter's ire by producing close imitations (Planet of Peril (1929) and two sequels) of Burroughs's Martian novels, though set on Venus; Burroughs, the story goes, then retaliated by writing his own Venus novels, whereupon Kline responded with an even more direct intrusion on Burroughs's territory by boldly setting two novels on Mars. Kline's jungle adventure stories, reminiscent of Burroughs's Tarzan tales, have also been cited as evidence of the conflict. While the two authors did write the works in question, the theory that they did so in contention with each other is supported only circumstantially, by the resemblance and publication dates of the works themselves. The feud theory was originally set forth in a fan press article, "The Kline-Burroughs War," by Donald A. Wollheim (Science Fiction News, November, 1936), and afterward given wider circulation by Sam Moskowitz in his book Explorers of the Infinite. Richard A. Lupoff debunked the case in his book Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure. Among the evidence cited by Lupoff discounting the feud: (1) no comment from either writer acknowledging the feud is documented, and (2) family members of the two authors have no recollection of ever hearing them mention it. In response to Lupoff's investigations Moskowitz identified his original source as Wollheim's article, while Wollheim stated, when questioned on the source of his own information: "I made it up!"

Literary agent

In the mid-1930s Kline largely abandoned writing to concentrate on his career as a literary agent (most famously for fellow Weird Tales author Robert E. Howard, pioneer sword and sorcery writer and creator of Conan the Barbarian). Kline represented Howard from the Spring of 1933 till Howard's death in June 1936, and continued to act as literary agent for Howard's estate thereafter. It has been suggested that Kline may have completed Howard's "planetary romance" Almuric, which he submitted to Weird Tales for posthumous publication in 1939, although this claim is disputed.

Bibliography

Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Otis Adelbert Kline

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Otis Adelbert Kline.

Kline's novels normally received serial publication in magazines before their release in book form. The Mars novels appeared in Argosy, and Port of Peril in Weird Tales (as Buccaneers of Venus).

Venus series

Planet of Peril (1929)
The Prince of Peril (1930)
The Port of Peril (1932)

Mars series

The Swordsman of Mars (1933)
The Outlaws of Mars (1933)

Collections

The Man Who Limped and Other Stories (1946)
The Dragoman's Revenge (2007)

References

Sheldon Jaffery and Fred Cook, The Collector's Index to Weird Tales, Bowling Green, OH, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985.

External links

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 62846544 LCCN: n80083656 GND: 15523580X BNF: cb166750987

Persondata
Name	Kline, Otis Adelbert
Alternative names
Short description	American science fiction writer
Date of birth	1891
Place of birth	Chicago, Illinois
Date of death	1946
Place of death

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.