BANGS, John Kendrick

(1862-1922)

   Extremely prolific US writer under many names, most of whose books of interest were humorous fantasies, not sf. However, one of them (his most famous), A House-Boat on the Styx: Being Some Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades (1896), provides a model for many stories featuring the famous dead as posthumous protagonists in venues that usually have an Arcadian glow. From it a suggestive line of association can be drawn through William Dean HOWELLS's The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon (1914) and the works of Thorne Smith (1892-1934) down to the various Riverworld tales and novels of Philip Jose FARMER. The sequels areThe Pursuit of the House-Boat (1897) and The Enchanted Type-Writer (coll of linked stories 1899). Other works: Roger Camerden: A Strange Story (1887); New Waggings of Old Tales (coll 1888) with Frank Dempster Sherman, both writing as Two Wags; Tiddlywink Tales (coll 1891); Toppleton's Client, or A Spirit in Exile (1893); The Water Ghost (coll 1894); Mr Bonaparte of Corsica (1895); The Idiot (1895); A Rebellious Heroine (1896); The Bicyclers, and Three Other Farces (coll 1896); Ghosts I have Met and Some Others (coll 1898); The Dreamers: A Club (coll 1899)Mr Munchausen (1901); Over the Plum-Pudding (coll 1901); Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmie-Boy (coll 1902), some stories being sf; Emblemland (1902) with Charles R.Macauley, a desert-island fantasy; Olympian Nights (1902); The Inventions of an Idiot (coll 1904); Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream (1907); The Autobiography of Methuselah (1909); Jack and the Check Book (1911); Shylock Homes: His Posthumous Memoirs (coll 1973).