Evelyn E. Smith (1922–2000)
Author of Miss Melville Regrets
About the Author
Series
Works by Evelyn E. Smith
Everyday Witchcraft: Love Magic, Charms and Spells, Fortune Telling; Everything You Need to Know to Enjoy Occult Power! (1972) 13 copies
Man's Best Friend 3 copies
Short Science Fiction Collection 057 2 copies
Fortune Telling 2 copies
Not Fit for Children 2 copies
Love Potions & Spells 2 copies
Dictionary of Health Foods: From A to Z, an Index to over 150 Health Foods and Supplements; Answers to All Your Questions! (1972) 2 copies
50 Games of Solitaire 2 copies
Woman's Touch 1 copy
The Ignoble Savages 1 copy
The Nile; Somebody to Play 1 copy
Mr. Replogle's Dream 1 copy
Associated Works
The World That Couldn't Be and 8 Other Novelets From "Galaxy" (1959) — Contributor — 86 copies, 5 reviews
New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow (1994) — Contributor — 71 copies, 3 reviews
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction October 1961, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1961) — Contributor — 21 copies, 1 review
Rediscovery, Volume 2: Science Fiction by Women, 1953-1957 (2022) — Contributor — 15 copies, 1 review
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction June 1953, Vol. 4, No. 6 (1953) — Contributor — 10 copies
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction November 1952, Vol. 3, No. 7 (1952) — Contributor — 8 copies
Contatto con l'inumano — Contributor — 4 copies
Short Science Fiction Collection 072 — Contributor — 2 copies
After the Apocalypse: 9 Visions of the Future from Sci-Fi Writers of the 1950s (2013) — Contributor — 2 copies
Women Resurrected: Stories from Women Science Fiction Writers of the 50's (2011) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Lyons, Delphine C.
- Birthdate
- 1922-07-25
- Date of death
- 2000-07-04
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- science fiction writer
mystery novelist
crossword puzzle constructor
short story writer - Short biography
- Evelyn E. Smith was born in New York City. During the 1950s, an era when women rarely appeared in science fiction magazines, she regularly published short stories and novelettes in Galaxy Science Fiction, Fantastic Universe, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, among others. She also wrote science fiction novels, beginning with The Perfect Planet (1962), often focused on gender identity. However, she is probably best known today for her series of mystery novels about Miss Melville, a middle-aged socialite-turned-assassin, who made her debut in Miss Melville Regrets (1986). Under the pseudonym Delphine C. Lyons, she also published at least five gothic romance novels such as Flower of Evil (1965) and the nonfiction work Everyday Witchcraft (1972). Her short story "At Last I've Found You" was adapted into an opera by Seymour Barab in 1984. Two volumes of her collected stories were published posthumously as Evelyn E. Smith Resurrected: Selected Stories of Evelyn E Smith (2010) and The Best of Evelyn E. Smith: The Two Suns of Morcali and Other Stories (2012). Her work appears in numerous anthologies.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
- Place of death
- New York, New York, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- New York, New York, USA
Members
Reviews
Sure, you could say this is largely Orientalist claptrap, but it's also very diverting! That genteel artist and assassin Miss Melville is back, in a changing New York City where Altman's and Gimbel's have closed. The story begins at Rundle House, a home for pregnant teens that seems to be a front for criminal activity. The pimp of some of the pregnant girls is on the Board of Directors--but don't worry, Miss Melville soon murders him!
I was wondering if Evelyn E. Smith was inspired by the show more Covenant House scandal but maybe it was a case of life imitating art, because the book says Rundle House wasn't "a well-known institution like Covenant House, where even a run-of-the-mill chain snatching would have gotten headlines." I did do a little research, and the Covenant House scandal broke in January 1990 and the sex pest priest retired in February. Bloomingdale's went into bankruptcy in January 1990, which is referenced in the book, and the book is copyrighted 1991. So at some point in the writing or the editing process Smith learned about the shady goings-on at Covenant House, & maybe the coincidence helped make her book more topical. (The book is dedicated to Smith's agent Charlotte Sheedy "with gratitude for her patience and understanding," making it sounds like her manuscript took a long time to finish.)
All this talk about department stores is not irrelevant because the long-awaited murder of the Begum of Gandalfistan takes place in Bloomingdale's.
A big surprise is that there is one more Miss Melville book! Goodreads says it was written in 1993, but it was not published until 2006 (posthumously) and there aren't any reviews. If I do read it, I'll keep you posted! show less
I was wondering if Evelyn E. Smith was inspired by the show more Covenant House scandal but maybe it was a case of life imitating art, because the book says Rundle House wasn't "a well-known institution like Covenant House, where even a run-of-the-mill chain snatching would have gotten headlines." I did do a little research, and the Covenant House scandal broke in January 1990 and the sex pest priest retired in February. Bloomingdale's went into bankruptcy in January 1990, which is referenced in the book, and the book is copyrighted 1991. So at some point in the writing or the editing process Smith learned about the shady goings-on at Covenant House, & maybe the coincidence helped make her book more topical. (The book is dedicated to Smith's agent Charlotte Sheedy "with gratitude for her patience and understanding," making it sounds like her manuscript took a long time to finish.)
All this talk about department stores is not irrelevant because
A big surprise is that there is one more Miss Melville book! Goodreads says it was written in 1993, but it was not published until 2006 (posthumously) and there aren't any reviews. If I do read it, I'll keep you posted! show less
I re-read this comedy/thriller of the 1980s and I loved it even more than I did when I was a young person. This novel is drenched to its core in '80s New York, and because it's so well-written, it's fascinating rather than dated because everything is explained properly. Young people will be able to understand what's going on when, for example, Miss Melville gets on the bus and drops her coins in the box and gets a paper transfer from the driver. Here is the New York of Crazy Eddie, rich show more people clipping coupons, and Central Park being too dangerous to walk in.
The main character Miss Melville is an artist living in genteel poverty in her rent-controlled apartment, but now the building is going co-op and she can't afford to buy her apartment. The author describes gentrification very vividly as "the colonial juggernaut." Through a series of strange mischances, Miss Melville first becomes an established party crasher and then begins a lucrative new career as an assassin. But she only murders awful people who deserve it. Miss Melville is a wonderful character because although she's snobbish and old-fashioned, she is great at shooting people and has a lot of plain common sense. For example, when her headmistress cousin complains that one of the parents at her school has had a "sex change," Miss Melville phlegmatically tells her, "Things like that are happening all over the world." Miss Melville also can't understand the strange "downtown" young artists, but she feels some sense of kinship with them. I have never read the other books in this series--I didn't even know it was a series--but I'm looking forward to it now. show less
The main character Miss Melville is an artist living in genteel poverty in her rent-controlled apartment, but now the building is going co-op and she can't afford to buy her apartment. The author describes gentrification very vividly as "the colonial juggernaut." Through a series of strange mischances, Miss Melville first becomes an established party crasher and then begins a lucrative new career as an assassin. But she only murders awful people who deserve it. Miss Melville is a wonderful character because although she's snobbish and old-fashioned, she is great at shooting people and has a lot of plain common sense. For example, when her headmistress cousin complains that one of the parents at her school has had a "sex change," Miss Melville phlegmatically tells her, "Things like that are happening all over the world." Miss Melville also can't understand the strange "downtown" young artists, but she feels some sense of kinship with them. I have never read the other books in this series--I didn't even know it was a series--but I'm looking forward to it now. show less
This is another new-to-me author in my tour of Golden Age science fiction. It's a collection of short stories first published in the 1950s with maybe a few from the early 1960s. The prose was readable, without the stiltedness I'd been half-expecting from work of that age. There were a few typos, but nothing terribly distracting.
For many of the stories, the author brings a sense of gentle humour into an unusual situation: most commonly some kind of culture clash with misunderstandings and show more misinterpretations between various parties (whether deliberate or inadvertent). The speculative elements are kept light, with the emphasis on how people (whether human or not) deal with issues rather than the nitty-gritty of how they got there. I enjoyed this approach, although by the halfway point it was starting to feel a bit repetitive. I guess that's a hazard of reading a compilation since they wouldn't all have been published at the same time. show less
For many of the stories, the author brings a sense of gentle humour into an unusual situation: most commonly some kind of culture clash with misunderstandings and show more misinterpretations between various parties (whether deliberate or inadvertent). The speculative elements are kept light, with the emphasis on how people (whether human or not) deal with issues rather than the nitty-gritty of how they got there. I enjoyed this approach, although by the halfway point it was starting to feel a bit repetitive. I guess that's a hazard of reading a compilation since they wouldn't all have been published at the same time. show less
One advantage of re-reading for Bingo: I get around to finally writing up books I loved once upon a time. These books are every bit as charming as I recall. Miss Melville, like Miss Marple and an infinite string of other Misses of a certain age, is overlooked and discounted, still. When artists keep ending up dead, she notices, she listens, she figures it out.
It's a little funny to me that I liked these so much as a college student. Now it makes sense: there aren't nearly enough middle-aged show more heroines around. And Miss Melville is always so polite, so well-brought-up, so pleasant that no one seems to notice how very clever she is.
While this would suit a number of squares, including Cozy Mysteries, I picked Amateur Sleuth, because a retired assassin and lauded professional painter amuses me as a sleuth. Also, I really love the word "sleuth" show less
It's a little funny to me that I liked these so much as a college student. Now it makes sense: there aren't nearly enough middle-aged show more heroines around. And Miss Melville is always so polite, so well-brought-up, so pleasant that no one seems to notice how very clever she is.
While this would suit a number of squares, including Cozy Mysteries, I picked Amateur Sleuth, because a retired assassin and lauded professional painter amuses me as a sleuth. Also, I really love the word "sleuth" show less
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 59
- Also by
- 36
- Members
- 706
- Popularity
- #35,870
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 15
- ISBNs
- 137
- Languages
- 1