Basil Wells

Born in Springboro, Pennsylvania, in 1912, Basil Eugene Wells was an American writer whose first published story, Rebirth of Man, appeared in Super Science Stories in 1940. He went on to become a regular contributor to pulp magazines, especially in science fiction, while also writing fantasy, western, and detective fiction.

Wells often published under his own name and sometimes as Gene Ellerman. Readers and reference works remember him for short fiction more than novels, and for a style that mixed adventure with strange, sometimes playful imagination. His work appeared in magazines including Planet Stories, helping place him among the many versatile magazine writers who shaped mid-20th-century popular fiction.

He died in 2003. Though never as famous as some of his contemporaries, Wells has continued to attract interest from science-fiction readers, bibliographers, and archive projects that keep his stories and legacy in view.