Дэвид Генри Келлер: Ғылыми-фантастика және қорқыныш жазушысының өмірі мен шығармашылығы

American writer (1880–1966)
the English author who used the pen name Henry Cecil

David Henry Keller (December 23, 1880 – July 13, 1966) was an American writer who worked for pulp magazines in the mid twentieth century, in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. He was also a psychiatrist and physician to shell shocked soldiers during World War I and World War II, and his experience treating mentally ill people is evident in some of his writing, which contains references to mental disorders. He initially wrote short stories as a hobby and published his first science fiction story in Amazing Stories in 1928. He continued to work as a psychiatrist while publishing over sixty short stories in science fiction and horror genres. Technically, his stories were not well written, but focused on the emotional aspects of imaginative situations, which was unusual for stories at the time.

Keller was born in Philadelphia on December 23, 1880. Keller was the Assistant Superintendent of the Louisiana State Mental Hospital at Pineville until Huey Long's reforms removed him from his position in 1928. He specialized in psychoanalysis and also worked in hospitals in Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Keller's first published work was "Aunt Martha", (1895, Bath Weekly) under the pseudonym Monk Smith. Keller remained an active contributor to Amazing Stories through the late 1930s. This began an intense writing period for Keller, but he was unable to support his family solely on a writer's income, so he set up a small private psychiatric practice out of his home in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. Gernsback also commissioned Keller to edit his magazine Sexology from 1934 to 1938. Keller died on July 13, 1966. Keller's work often expressed strong right wing views. Everett F. Bleiler claims he was "an ultra conservative ideologically". Bleiler described the series of stories in "The Menace" as "probably the most offensive to be found in early science fiction". The last of these, "The Insane Avalanche", is a racist story about removing the black and lower class white populations of America through violence and deportation. In a collection of early science fiction, editors Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg described Keller as "one of the most conceptually sophisticated" science fiction writers of his time, Bleiler described Keller as "a very poor technician" with "no power of criticism" when it came to writing fiction. However, he also argued that Keller "occasionally wrote fable like stories, detached from daily realities and surrogate science fiction realities, that were excellent". His 1932 horror tale "The Thing in the Cellar" has had 14 reprintings. The story features a boy who is frightened of the cellar, because he knows something is there. To prove that he is incorrect, his family locks him in the kitchen with the open cellar. The boy is found dead the next morning. Keller also created a series of fantasy stories called the Tales of Cornwall sequence, about the Hubelaire family; these were influenced by James Branch Cabell. Keller also wrote some fantasy work inspired by his interest in Freudian psychology, including "The Golden Bough" (1934) and The Eternal Conflict (1939 in French; 1949 English). This list is incomplete. Keller wrote many of his stories years before publishing them. The Abyss. Published in Solitary Hunters and The Abyss. New Era Publishers, cover art by John Baltadonis. 1948. The Homunculus. Prime Press. 1949
The Lady Decides. Prime Press. 1950

Works on this list come from the David H. Keller Collection description at the Swarthmore College Library.