Ray Cummings

Born Raymond King Cummings in New York City on August 30, 1887, Ray Cummings was an American writer of science fiction and comic books. Before turning fully to writing, he worked as Thomas Edison’s personal assistant from 1914 to 1919, helping arrange phonograph record albums and write labels for Edison Records.

Cummings made his professional science-fiction debut with “The Girl in the Golden Atom” in 1919. The story and its sequel, “The People of the Golden Atom,” became the foundation for his best-known novel, The Girl in the Golden Atom, published in 1922. His fiction often explored microscopic worlds, time travel, space adventure, and imaginative scientific discoveries.

A highly prolific writer, Cummings produced hundreds of stories and novels under several names and contributed to the development of pulp science fiction. He also wrote comic-book stories, including adventures featuring Captain America, the Human Torch, and the Sub-Mariner. He died in Mount Vernon, New York, in January 1957.