author
Hugo Erichsen
1860–1944
Best known for exploring how writers work and for arguing passionately in favor of cremation, this Detroit physician wrote books that mixed curiosity, reform-minded energy, and a strong interest in practical questions. His surviving papers show a wide circle of literary contacts on both sides of the Atlantic.
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About the author
Born in 1860 and based in Detroit, Hugo Erichsen was a German-American physician who also built a notable career as a writer. Archival records at the University of Michigan describe him as a physician, writer, and advocate of cremation, and note that his papers preserve correspondence with European and American authors.
He is especially remembered for Methods of Authors (1894), a book drawn from responses by writers about their working habits, and for The Cremation of the Dead and Cremation Versus Earth-Burial, which argued for cremation on sanitary, historical, religious, and economic grounds. Those books show the range of his interests: part literary observer, part public reformer.
Erichsen died in 1944. Even from a small surviving record, he comes across as a curious and energetic figure who moved easily between medicine, publishing, and public debate.