David Wright O'Brien

(January 1, 1918 – December 11, 1944)

David Wright O’Brien, a Chicago fantasy and science fiction writer, was 22 years old when his first story, "Truth Is a Plague!" appeared in the February 1940 issue of Amazing Stories. Between January 1941 and August 1942, he had some 57 stories published in pulp magazines like Amazing and Fantastic Adventures, most under the pen names John York Cabot, Duncan Farnsworth, Richard Vardon and Clee Garson, which became a Ziff-Davis house name. Some of his stories were co-written with his close friend William P. McGivern, with whom O'Brien shared his Chicago office.

A nephew of Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, O’Brien continued writing even after he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, adding “corporal” before all his pseudonyms. He died at age 26, flying a bombing raid over Berlin.

• David Wright O’Brien Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Clee Garson Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Bibliography at ISFDB.
• Works at Project Gutenberg and Faded Page.
• FindAGrave

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Person

1918—1944

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