author
Willis George Emerson
1856–1918
Best known for the strange and enduring cult novel The Smoky God, this Iowa-born writer led a life that wandered through journalism, law, politics, and real-estate promotion before ending in Los Angeles.
6 Audiobooks
Buell Hampton
by Willis George Emerson
The Smoky God; Or, A Voyage to the Inner World
by Willis George Emerson
My "Pardner" and I (Gray Rocks): A Story of the Middle-West
by Willis George Emerson
The Treasure of Hidden Valley
by Willis George Emerson
A Vendetta of the Hills
by Willis George Emerson
Emerson on Sound Money A Speech, 1896
by Willis George Emerson
About the author
Born in 1856 near Blakesburg, Iowa, Willis George Emerson was an American novelist whose career stretched well beyond fiction. Sources consistently describe him as a newspaperman, lawyer, political figure, and promoter as well as an author, which helps explain the restless, ambitious energy that runs through his work.
He is most closely associated today with The Smoky God (1908), a fantastical inner-earth tale that later readers came to treat as an early curiosity of science fiction and occult adventure. He also wrote other novels, including The Builders and The Treasure of Hidden Valley, but The Smoky God is the book that has kept his name in circulation.
Emerson died in 1918. His reputation is unusual: part popular novelist, part booster and public man, with a life that seems almost as colorful as his fiction.