About the Author

Edward Elmer Smith aka E. E. Smith (1890 - 1965) was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and an early science-fiction author, best known for the Lensman and Skylark series. He is sometimes called the father of space opera. Lee Hawkins Garby (1892-1953) was the co-author with Edward Elmer Smith of the 1928 serial novel The Skylark of Space, the first science fiction story in which humans left the solar system. She was the wife of Dr. Carl DeWitt Garby, a friend of Dr. Smith's from college at the University of Idaho. The novel was first published as a book in 1946, as The Skylark of Space: The Tale of the First Inter-Stellar Cruise, naming Garby and Smith on the title page but Smith alone on the cover. The Library of Congress catalogs it as by Edward E. Smith, in collaboration with Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby; publisher Southgate Press. A revised edition by Smith alone was published by Pyramid Books in 1958 and reissued many times. From 2007 the original by Garby and Smith has been in print again.