HOLT-WHITE, W(illiam Edward Bradden)

(1878-?)

   UK writer in various genres, author of 7 novels of sf interest. In The Earthquake: A Romance of London in 1907 (1906) the ruined capital is taken in hand by an aristocratic Prime Minister. In The Man who Stole the Earth (1909), which begins as a RURITANIAN pot pourri of politics and romance, a love-lorn inventor bombs most of Europe into submission in his drive to wed the daughter of the King of Balkania, forcing the world, en passant, into a state of peace. The Prime Minister's Secret (1910) is marginal sf. Helen of All Time (1910) rather remarkably compresses into one volume an advanced airship (TRANSPORTATION) and the REINCARNATION of Helen of Troy. The Man who Dreamed Right (1910), though suffering fromWH-W's general tendency to overpack his tales to the point of parody, rather movingly depicts an innocent man whose dreams predict the future, and who is destroyed at the hands of the world's rulers (including Teddy Roosevelt), all desperate to corner his power. The World Stood Still(1912) not entirely plausibly describes the catastrophic effect on the world when its financiers go on strike; and The Woman who Saved the World (1914) concerns NEAR FUTURE terrorism.

   JC