Thomson Burtis

Born in New York in 1896, Henry Thomson Burtis was an American writer remembered mainly for adventure and aviation fiction. He wrote during the years when flying still felt new and daring, which gave his work a strong sense of novelty and momentum.

Burtis became especially associated with stories for younger readers, including the Rex Lee aviation books, and he also wrote air-combat tales. His fiction drew on the fascination many readers felt for airplanes in the early twentieth century, mixing action, technology, and wide-open-sky adventure in a way that made flight feel vivid and immediate.

He died in 1971. Although he is not as widely known today as some of his contemporaries, his work remains part of the lively tradition of early twentieth-century popular fiction that introduced generations of readers to the romance of aviation.