R. Norman (Robert Norman) Grisewood

Active in the late Victorian and early modern period, R. Norman Grisewood wrote under the fuller name Robert Norman Grisewood. Public-domain and catalog records connect him with Zarlah the Martian, the work most readily available today, and with other fiction including The Drifting of the Cavashaws.

He appears to have had an English background, and memorial records place his death in Brooklyn, New York, on February 9, 1923. Because reliable biographical details are scarce, he remains one of those authors whose books outlast the paper trail of their everyday life.

That air of mystery is part of the appeal. Grisewood's surviving work offers a small but intriguing window into the adventurous storytelling of the early 1900s, when tales of distant worlds and dramatic escapades fired readers' imaginations.