author
Florence McLandburgh
1850–1934
A 19th-century American writer and poet, she is best remembered today for imaginative tales that brush up against early science fiction. Her work ranges from speculative short fiction to later, more patriotic and sentimental writing.
1 Audiobook
The Automaton Ear, and Other Sketches
by Florence McLandburgh
About the author
Born in Chillicothe, Ohio, on April 22, 1850, Florence McLandburgh was an American writer of fiction and poetry. She also wrote under the pen name McLandburgh Wilson, and she died in Akron, Ohio, on June 3, 1934.
Her best-known book is The Automaton Ear, and Other Sketches (1876). The title story, first published in Scribner’s Monthly in 1873, is now often noted as an early work of science fiction because it imagines a device that can recover sounds from the past.
McLandburgh’s writing also appeared in periodicals including Scribner’s Monthly, Appleton’s Journal, and Lakeside Magazine, and her later book The Little Flag on Main Street was published in 1917. Though she is not widely known today, readers interested in overlooked women writers and the early history of speculative fiction continue to rediscover her work.