Sam Merwin Jr.

American novelist

Samuel Kimball Merwin Jr. (April 28, 1910 January 13, 1996) was an American mystery fiction writer, editor and science fiction author. His pseudonyms included Elizabeth Deare Bennett, Matt Lee, Jacques Jean Ferrat and Carter Sprague.

He was born on April 28, 1910, in Plainfield, New Jersey, to Samuel Merwin Sr. He received a BA from Princeton in 1931 and studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. He began his career in mainstream journalism as a reporter for the Boston Evening America (1932–1933) then as the New York City Bureau chief for The Philadelphia Inquirer. His career continued as an editor (Dell publishing Co. 1937–1938, Standard Magazines Group 1941–1951, King Size Publications (1952), Renown Publications (1955–1956, 1977–1979) and Brandon House (1966–1967) and as a magazine writer. In 1934 he married Lee Anna Vance. Merwin began publishing fiction in 1940 with the mystery novel, Murder in Miniatures, and wrote mysteries, romance (under female pseudonyms), sports fiction, and science fiction. Overall, he produced more mystery writing than science fiction writing and his science fiction is said to show the influence of the mystery genre. However he was most influential in the science fiction genre, as the editor of Startling Stories (1945–1951) Fantastic Story Quarterly (1950–1951), Wonder Stories Annual (1950–1951), Thrilling Wonder Stories (1945 1951) and Fantastic Universe (1953). He wrote a few comic book stories for DC's Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space that were published from 1952 to 1953. He also edited the Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine in 1956, returning to edit it from 1977 to 1979. He wrote many of the Michael Shayne stories that appeared in the magazine

He died on January 13, 1996, Los Angeles, California.

Merwin is probably best remembered today for the alternate worlds novel The House of Many Worlds (1951) and its sequel, Three Faces of Time (1955). Boucher and McComas, although faulting its ending, characterized The House of Many Worlds as "admirably handled. . the writing is the best that Merwin has yet published.". P. Schuyler Miller praised the novel as "roundly entertaining [and] firmly plotted [and] fully packed with all sorts of neat little bits of color and detail. Groff Conklin, however, reviewed House as "rather disappointing," citing its "hasty writing and unfortunate characterizations".