Bertram Gayton

Bertram Gayton was the working name of Bertram Edgar Guyton (1893–1969), a British author from Hampshire, England. Reference sources on speculative fiction identify him mainly for The Gland Stealers (1922), a novel that plays with the era's fascination with rejuvenation through gland-grafting.

That book is usually described as science fiction with a comic, grotesque edge: it follows an elderly man transformed by a fad medical procedure, then pushes the idea into satire. Modern genre encyclopedias continue to single it out as Gayton's notable contribution, which helps explain why his name survives even though he does not appear to have been a prolific novelist.

Little biographical detail is readily confirmed beyond his full name, dates, and connection to Hampshire, so his public profile remains fairly shadowy. What is clear is that his surviving reputation rests on one memorable oddity of early twentieth-century fiction—a novel strange enough to keep attracting curious readers long after its first publication.