E. V. (Edwin Vincent) Odle

Edwin Vincent Odle, usually published as E. V. Odle, was a British writer born in 1890 in Brockley, Kent, and he died on February 21, 1942. Reliable bibliographic sources identify him as a novelist and short-story writer, and he is most often remembered today for The Clockwork Man (1923).

That novel has earned a lasting niche in science-fiction history because of its unusual mix of comedy, speculative ideas, and time-travel strangeness. Although Odle never became a household name, his writing continues to interest readers who enjoy early imaginative fiction from the period when modern science fiction was still taking shape.

Available source material on his life is fairly limited, so many personal details are unclear. What can be confirmed is that he wrote under the name E. V. Odle, worked in Britain, and left behind a small but distinctive body of fiction that still stands out for its originality.