W. S. (William Shuler) Harris

Born in 1865, William Shuler Harris was an American minister and author whose books moved between religious writing and early science fiction. Reference sources identify him as a longtime clergyman, and later readers have remembered him especially for the unusual mix of faith, social criticism, and cosmic imagination in his work.

His best-known titles include Sermons by the Devil (1904) and Life in a Thousand Worlds (1905). The latter is often noted as an early planetary voyage tale, following a traveler through the solar system and beyond while exploring societies that are sometimes idealistic, sometimes cautionary. That blend of moral purpose and speculative adventure gives his writing a distinctive place on the edge between sermon literature and science fiction.

Harris died in 1956. Though he is not widely known today, his books have endured through public-domain archives and genre reference works, where they continue to attract readers curious about early imaginative fiction with a religious and philosophical bent.