I have a growing fascination with forgotten writers. This began when I discovered a mention of a rare science fiction novel in an old fanzine, Phoenix by Lady Dorothy Mills published in 1926. That was the same year Amazing Stories began publishing. There wasn’t much science fiction published in hardback before the 1950s, and this was one was by a woman, and even rarer oddity. It took me about twenty years to track down a copy of Phoenix. I’ve since maintained a website devoted to Lady Dorothy Mills. At first, I’d get 2-3 inquires every year or two, but it’s now been years since anyone has shown any interest.
Over the past year, I’ve stumbled across three short stories by Peter Phillips. They were “Dreams Are Sacred,” “Manna,” and “At No Extra Cost.” I can’t say they are classics, but they were entertaining and eclectic. I liked them immediately. The Internet Science Fiction Database lists only 21 stories for Phillips, but two of them are the same story with different titles. It lists no published novels or short story collections. Philips died in 2012, but I did find a short biography of him in a 1958 issue of New Worlds, the issue of his last published science fiction story. There I learned that Phillips was a professional newspaper writer and editor, who had little time for writing fiction. The little bio also reported he had over thirty stories published, including detective stories. Wikipedia didn’t have much on Phillips, but the Science Fiction Encyclopedia had a concise but enticing write-up.
- “No Silence for Maloeween” – Weird Tales (May 1948)
- “Death’s Bouquet” – Weird Tales (September 1948)
- “Dreams Are Sacred” – Astounding Science Fiction (September 1948)
- “Manna” – Astounding Science Fiction (February 1949)
- “P-Plus” – Astounding Science Fiction (August 1949)
- “Unknown Quantity” – New Works (August 1949)
- “Plagiarist” – New Worlds (Summer 1950)
- “Counter Charm” – Slant (Spring 1951)
- “Field Study” – Galaxy Science Fiction (April 1951)
- “At No Extra Cost” – Marvel Science Fiction (August 1951) reprint of “Unknown Quantity”
- “She Who Laughs” – Galaxy Science Fiction (April 1952)
- “Criteria” – Planet Stories (May 1952)
- “Lost Memory” – Galaxy Science Fiction (May 1952)
- “Lila” – Startling Stories (April 1953)
- “University” – Galaxy Science Fiction (April 1953)
- “Sylvia” – Fantasy Fiction (June 1953)
- “The Warning” – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (September 1953)
- “c/o Mr. Makepeace” – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (February 1954)
- “First Man in the Moon” – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (September 1954)
- “Variety Agent” – Infinity Science Fiction (June 1956)
- “Next Stop the Moon” – New Worlds (January 1958)
I enter a lot of data about science fiction into databases. Over the years I’ve noticed there are many writers who have just a handful of short stories published and then they disappeared. I’ve wondered what happened to them. Was getting published not the experience they dreamed about and worked so long to achieve? Is writing fiction more trouble than it’s worth? Did they not get the praise and attention they expected?
Phillips had some minor recognition. His name was only on one magazine cover, but a handful of his stories made it to some nice collectible anthologies.
“Dreams Are Sacred” were in these books:
“Manna” was included in these anthologies:
“P-Plus” and “Unknown Quantity” were reprinted here:
“Plagiarist” was reprinted in:
“Counter Charm” was included in:
“At No Extra Cost” made this classic best-of-the-year anthology:
“She Who Laughs” was liked by Fred Pohl:
“Lost Memory” is remembered here:
“University” was Phillips second story in:
“The Warning” was snagged by Judith Merril:
“c/o Mr. Makepeace” was included in:
Listing out these anthologies (and I didn’t list the foreign and obscure reprints) shows that Phillips was liked by a number of anthology editors. Because most of these anthologies are old, it indicates that Phillips is being forgotten. That’s sad.
I’m going to read his stories and then maybe write about them. I don’t think they hold up for younger, modern readers, but they are interesting in a historical way regarding the genre. Phillips seemed up on current affairs in his tales, but then he was a newspaperman. Of the three I’ve read, they felt like he had a good sense of speculating about the future and social changes. They had some impact on readers of his day, but evidently not lasting impact. I’d like to explore why.
Most science fiction is eventually forgotten, but not all. I hear there are two television productions of The War of the Worlds coming out this fall. Why is that story enduring, but most other SF not?
James Wallace Harris
Classics of Science Fiction 
Dear Mr Harris, I am getting in touch with you in my capacity as the Executor of the estate of the late Peter Phillips, who was my father-in-law. You are incorrect in your assertion that works published in the 1960s or earlier are out of copyright. The copyright laws in Europe and the U.K. state clearly that copyright extends until 70 years after the author’s death. The copyright of Peter Phillips’ work is held by my wife and her sister, Peter’s daughters. We are delighted that you like Peter’s writings, but you may NOT reproduce them in any form without permission, or payment of a royalty fee. There IS still interest in Peter Phillips’ writings; some of his stories have been re-published in anthologies as recently as 2019 and 2016. (“Beyond Time” – British Library Publishing, for example). I must therefore ask you to delete the scans of Peter Phillips’ stories from your website, since this constitutes a breach of copyright law. Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this.
You may be interested to learn that, in searching for lost manuscripts since Peter’s death, I have just recently come across two previously unpublished works. One, I did not know anything about. The second, written in the mid 1970s, I had read before, but Peter himself could no longer locate. We kept all his documents in a large number of boxes, and have finally managed to unearth this story, which is great news. It is our intention to publish a “complete works” volume of Peter’s stories later this year.
Regards, Andrew Dibben
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Thanks for letting me know. I have deleted the files. Looking forward to reading Peter Phillips’s collected stories.
Also, let me know when you publish this collection, I’ll buy a copy and review it here. I really like his stories. Although, I don’t get very many readers at this site.
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Copyright law is different in the USA than the UK, and it is not life+70 for stories/work from this period. There appear to have been no renewals for Phillips’ stories past the initial 27 year period from what I can check online, therefore they are Public Domain in the USA.
Good to hear there is a collection of his work coming out though, and I look forward to its publication.
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Dreams are Sacred is one of my favorite stories. I read it in the 1994 version of Great Tales of Science Fiction when I was young. I’d love to read more of his works. Thanks for writing this article about him!
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His collected stories were supposed to be published but I’ve yet to see a copy for sale. Maybe it was only published in England.
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Hello, Mr. Harris,
I moved recently and was re-shelving my little library when I came across the Robert Silverberg anthology you have pictured here, which brought back fond memories. I purchased my old copy a few years ago, at the conclusion of a long-unfruitful search for the story that had charmed me about 40 years ago, but the author and title of which I had long since forgotten. It was Phillips’ “Manna.” Until recently, even the awesome search capability of the internet was not enough to compensate for what little I could remember from the story — only snippets of the plot and a few phrases. The substance of my memory was the pleasure it had given me.
Over the years, there have been a few other forgotten joys of this nature, impossible to find again until, at long last, they appear. It’s quite an event, when it happens.
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If you are looking for some other stories, describe what you remember and I’ll see if I remember them, or tell some other people that might.
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I can tell you “Field Study,”– a really intriguing take on the “Aliens Among Us” genre- was also an episode of the X-1 radio show. The episodes are available at archive.org. If you haven’t heard them, they’re excellent- many of the golden age authors are represented.
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I’ll have to give them a try. Over the years I’ve heard a few of the radio shows.
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Jim, this is very ironic. I had loved “c/o Mr. Makepeace” by Peter Phillips when we read the Damon Knight anthology “The Dark Side” in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction book group. I was unfamiliar with him, and wondered if there were any collections. I checked ISFDB, and then contacted Andrew Diblen, his son-in-law. I found out that there was a Peter Phillips collection in the planning, “Manna: The Collected Writings of Peter Phillips”. I have not seen any indication that it has ever been published, perhaps derailed by the pandemic. Thanks for a great post here. Like you, I was struck by how many of his stories had been anthologized, which does tell us that his work was appreciated by editors of the time. I need to read more of his work.
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