E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith

Born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in 1890, Edward Elmer Smith was trained as an engineer and worked in food engineering, especially on doughnut and pastry mixes. Alongside that technical career, he became one of early science fiction’s most influential writers, often publishing as E. E. "Doc" Smith.

He is best known for the Skylark and Lensman series, works widely associated with the rise of space opera. Britannica credits him with helping create that subgenre through stories set on a huge intergalactic scale, packed with advanced spacecraft, powerful weapons, and sweeping adventure.

Smith died in 1965, but his reputation has lasted because his fiction pushed science fiction outward—toward cosmic stakes, expansive worldbuilding, and the sense that the universe itself could be the stage for adventure.