author
W. Elwyn (Waldo Elwyn) Backus
1892–1979
A pulp-era writer best remembered for science fiction and weird tales, he brought big ideas to magazine fiction while making his living in more ordinary trades. His work still appeals to readers who enjoy early speculative adventures and the odd corners of classic fantasy magazines.
1 Audiobook
The waning of a world
by W. Elwyn (Waldo Elwyn) Backus
About the author
W. Elwyn Backus, born Waldo Elwyn Backus on March 7, 1892, was an American writer associated especially with Weird Tales. Reference pages for his work and public-domain texts identify him under both forms of his name, and modern library listings continue to connect him with early science fiction and fantasy.
A surviving biographical sketch describes him as a writer who worked in paint, plumbing, and hardware while publishing fiction and pamphlet material on the side. That same source notes that he was born in Newport, Kentucky, and educated in schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which fits the picture of a working writer building a career outside the literary mainstream.
Backus died in 1979, and his fiction remains available through projects such as Wikisource and Project Gutenberg. Today he is mainly remembered by readers of pulp history for stories like The Waning of a World and for his place in the early magazine tradition where science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction freely overlapped.