SHERRIFF, R(obert) C(edric)

(1896-1975)

   UK playwright, novelist and film-writer, known mainly for his hit play Journey's End (1929), filmed in 1930 by James Whale and in 1975 as Aces High. His sf novel, The Hopkins Manuscript (1939; rev vt The Cataclysm 1958), is a DISASTER tale set mostly in rural England where theprotagonist, Edgar Hopkins (whose manuscript is discovered hundreds of years later by Abyssinian archaeologists), fussily eulogizes his beloved countryside and people as the dislodged Moon crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, causing tornadoes and tsunamis. Hopkins then records an abortiverecovery of civilization before the Moon's mineral wealth tempts the shattered nations of Europe into terminal conflict and an Asian warlord moves in. The science is derisory, but the elegy is strongly felt. RCS wrote the screenplay for the 1933 film The INVISIBLE MAN .

   JC