author
William Simpson
1828–1910
A little-known American writer remembered for an unusually early Mars novel, he used fiction to question earthly ideas about morality, politics, and religion. His work has since drawn attention from science-fiction reference sources as an early example of speculative social satire.
1 Audiobook
The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion
by William Simpson
About the author
William Simpson (March 6, 1828 – August 26, 1910) was an American author born in New York and later associated with Alameda, California. Science-fiction reference sources identify him as the writer behind the pseudonym Thomas Blot.
He is best known for The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion (1891), a novel in which a visitor from Mars offers a critical outside view of human society. Modern genre historians note it as an early work of science fiction with strong utopian and satirical elements.
Very little biographical detail about Simpson appears to be widely documented online beyond basic birth and death information and his link to The Man from Mars. That scarcity makes the novel itself the main reason he is still remembered today.