KNOX, Monsignor Ronald A(rbuthnott)

(1888-1957)

   UK Roman Catholic priest (converted 1917, ordained 1919) and extremely prolific writer. Among his many books are several then-popular detective novels, volumes of parodies, a new translation of the Testaments, and some genre work. A Still More Sporting Adventure! (1911)with Charles R.L. Fletcher (1857-1934), published anon, takes two women back in time to spy on Queen Dido in Carthage, thus parodying An Adventure (1911) by Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, a bestselling nonfictiontale of the authors' experiences via supposed timeslip in Versailles. Absolute and Abitofhell (1915 chap), as by R.A.K., is a fantasy poem aboutNoah's Ark; with further material, some of genre interest, it was republished in Essays in Satire (coll 1928). Memories of the Future: Being Memoirs of the Years 1915-1972 Written in the Year of Grace 1988 by Opal,Lady Porstock (1923) satirizes the type of evolutionary UTOPIA most closely identified with H.G. WELLS. The story is perhaps too cleverly told, and its imitation of the genteel memoir too exact in places. Other Eyes than Ours (1926), which features an apparatus for communicating withthe dead, is in fact hoax sf, the device having been concocted to bring an obsessive to his senses; The Rich Young Man: a Fantasy (1928 chap) is a Christian fantasy.

   JC