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Abraham Grace Merritt (January 20, 1884 – August 21, 1943) – known by his byline, A. Merritt – was an American Sunday magazine editor and a writer of fantastic fiction. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in 1999, its fourth class of two deceased and two living writers.〔 ==Life== Born in Beverly, New Jersey, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1894.〔Merritt, Abraham; Levy, Michael M. (''The Moon Pool'' ), p. 303. Wesleyan University Press, 2004. ISBN 0819567078. "Abraham Grace Merritt was born on January 20, 1884, in Beverly, New Jersey, a small town outside of Philadelphia."〕 Originally trained in law, he turned to journalism, first as a correspondent and later as editor. According to Peter Haining, Merritt survived a harrowing experience while a young reporter at the ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' about which he refused to ever speak, but would, as Haining claims, mark a turning point in Merritt's life. He was assistant editor of ''The American Weekly'' from 1912 to 1937 under Morrill Goddard, then its editor from 1937 until his death. As editor, he hired the unheralded new artists Virgil Finlay and Hannes Bok and promoted the work done on polio by Sister Elizabeth Kenny. His fiction, eight complete novels and a number of short stories,〔(Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers )〕 was only a sideline to his journalism career. One of the best-paid journalists of his era, Merritt made $25,000 per year by 1919, and at the end of his life was earning $100,000 yearly—exceptional sums for the period. His financial success allowed him to pursue world travel—he invested in real estate in Jamaica and Ecuador—and exotic hobbies, like cultivating orchids and plants linked to witchcraft and magic (monkshood, wolfbane, blue datura, peyote, and cannabis).〔Moskowitz, Sam. ''A. Merritt: Reflections in the Moon Pool.'' Philadelphia, Oswald Train, 1985. ISBN 99962-4-760-0〕 Merritt married twice, once in the 1910s to Eleanore Ratcliffe, with whom he raised an adopted daughter, and again in the 1930s to Eleanor H. Johnson. He maintained an estate in Hollis Park Gardens on Long Island, where he accumulated collections of weapons, carvings, and primitive masks from his travels, as well as a library of occult literature that reportedly exceeded 5000 volumes. He died suddenly of a heart attack, at his winter home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, in 1943. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「A. Merritt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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