author

A. H. Phelps

Best known for the mid-century science fiction story The Merchants of Venus, this elusive writer left behind a small but memorable footprint. The surviving record suggests a rare mix of speculative imagination and technical expertise.

1 Audiobook

The Merchants of Venus

The Merchants of Venus

by A. H. Phelps

About the author

A. H. Phelps, often credited as A. H. Phelps, Jr., is known for The Merchants of Venus, a science fiction story first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in March 1954. The story later remained available through Project Gutenberg, which identifies it as having been produced from that magazine appearance.

Reliable biographical details are scarce, but LibriVox notes that Phelps also researched air pollution. That matches a 1967 PubMed record for A. H. Phelps Jr. as the author of Air pollution aspects of soap and detergent manufacture, and another source identifies him there as the principal author from Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Because so little personal information is easily confirmed, Phelps comes across as one of those intriguing mid-century writers whose work survives more clearly than their life story. What can be confirmed is that The Merchants of Venus connected strongly enough to be remembered, reprinted, and even adapted for the radio series X Minus One.