author
Robert H. Wilson
1909–1998
A scholar of medieval literature who also wrote early science fiction, he is best remembered for the 1931 story Out Around Rigel. His unusual mix of academic depth and pulp-era imagination gives his work a distinctive flavor.
1 Audiobook
Out Around Rigel
by Robert H. Wilson
About the author
Born on April 5, 1909, Robert Henry Wilson was an American writer whose work crossed two very different worlds: medieval scholarship and science fiction. According to the biographical information available through LibriVox, he earned a BA from Stanford University in 1928, an MA in 1930, and a PhD in medieval literature from the University of Chicago in 1932.
Wilson is associated most closely with early science fiction, especially Out Around Rigel, which appeared in Astounding Stories in December 1931 and later remained his best-known piece among genre readers. Reference material from the science fiction field notes the story as a characteristic example of the adventurous, romantic space fiction of its era.
He died on January 15, 1998. Reliable biographical details beyond these basics are limited in the sources found here, but the available record shows a writer whose career linked serious literary study with the energetic imagination of the pulp-magazine age.