STORY, Jack Trevor

(1917-1991)

   UK writer who remains best known for his first novel, The Trouble with Harry (1949), not sf, which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock (1889-1980) in 1955. The rumours that he wrote several of the Volsted GRIDBAN sf novels are unverified, but certainly he did produce many pseudonymous books over the first decade or so of his career. His openly acknowledged work included non-sf - but remarkable - tales for the Sexton Blake Library and several novels which used sf components to make theirpoints about the decline of England and the loss of youth, including Hitler Needs You (1970), One Last Mad Embrace (1970), Little Dog's Day(1971), which is a genuine sf DYSTOPIA, the surrealistic The Wind in the Snottygobble Tree (1971), Morag's Flying Fortress (1976), which is a borderline novel about sexual obsession, and Up River (1979; vt The Screwrape Lettuce 1980), in which an appalling aphrodisiac devastates theUK while the secret police, unnoticed, grab power.

   JC