There are two birthdays of note today, January 18.  Normally I would write one post about both of them. In this case, though, I’m going to write separate posts because the contributions of the two authors were so different.  This post will focus on Clare Winger Harris.  The post about C. M Eddy, Jr can be found here.

“The Ape Cycle”
Clare Winger Harris
Originally published in Science Wonder Quarterly, Spring 1930
The Artificial Man and Other Stories
Paperback $14.95
ebook $4.95

Clare Winger Harris (1891-1968) was one of the most important women to write for the pulps. She was also one of the first.  Her first published story was “A Runaway World” in the July 1926 issue of Weird Tales. Her second, “The Fate of the Poseidonia” was the third place winner in a contest and appeared in the June 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.

Yes, I know, women weren’t supposed to have written for the early sf pulps. I’ve dealt with that myth before and shown it’s bunk. I also looked at “The Artificial Man” in a previous post about early women science fiction writers.

Except for her last story, more about which later, her writing career only extended to 1930.

It’s that next to last story we’re going to look at today.  In spite of the clickbait nature of the post’s title, I don’t know if this story had any influence on Peirre Boule’s Planet of the Apes or any of the movie versions that followed.

The story opens with Daniel Stoddart and his young son Ray have just returned to America from a trip to Asia with his English friend Job Whilhoit.  Daniel, a widower, owns a farm. Unsatisfied with the hired help he has been able to find, he has decided to try to train monkeys and apes to be his servants.

They have brought back some apes for the purpose of breeding servants. The program continues. Job Whilhoit has been providing more apes for the program until he disappears on an expedition to Africa. The Stoddarts continue their program and decided to move to Death Valley so they can have more privacy.

Before they do, they are visited by Job’s widow and his daughter Melva. Ray meets them in Chicago and accompanies them to the station in the nearby town, but his father, who was supposed to pick them up, never shows. They return to the house to find him dead. There isn’t a mark on him. Melva thinks the gorilla who is in charge of the ape staff killed him, but Ray isn’t so sure.

The women continue to tour the States and return for another visit with Ray on their way home. On a walk with Melva, Ray is telling her his plans for moving to the desert and is wondering where he will find a male assistant. Melva is about to tell him his assistant doesn’t need to be male when the gorilla supervisor jumps out of the bushes and kidnaps Melva. Ray manages to catch up with them, only to find the gorilla’s mate has killed the gorilla and is about to attack Melva. He manages to rescue her, and she resumes her conversation.

Then scene shifts to three hundred years in the future. The descendants of Ray and Melva have successfully produced a breeding program that has produced highly competent apes which have been breed through manipulations of glands to be highly competent in certain jobs.  (This story was written years before DNA was discovered.)

The Earth has become a garden planet where humans live mostly in rural estate much like feudal barons. There are few cities, and the capital of North America is in northern Minnesota. Humans have begun to degenerate while have have progressed. They are planning a revolt when a leader appears.

His name is Gunther, and he is half ape and half human. Harris pretty much ignores how this is possible. She only states that humans don’t regard him as one of them, so he has decided to help the apes overthrow their masters. Not all of the apes trust him.

The apes are cunning and organized. At a predetermined time, they rise up. Many of the humans are killed. Others are enslaved. Harris doesn’t quite say that the apes are keeping the women and girls alive for sexual purposes, but it’s pretty obvious that’s on their minds.

Wilhoit Stoddart is the descendant of Ray and Melva at this time. He  knows more about the apes than anyone else. He and his sweetheart are the only hope mankind has.

This was a very interesting story, one that doesn’t fit the stereotype of 1920s and 1930s pulp stories. There is romance (more than one), women are present and play an active role in some of the events. Wilhoit Stoddard and his girlfriend have a discussion in which it is stated that women can perform the same tasks as men in this future society and there are few if any gender roles. Given the restrictions on sexual content at the time, the sexual intentions of the apes towards human women was pretty blatant.

There are a number of passages in which the morality of slavery and using the apes as slaves is discussed. This is not light escapism, not at all.

The resemblance to Planet of the Apes is really strong. Was this story an inspiration for either the original novel or any of the movie franchises? I can’t say for sure. It’s certainly possible. On the other claw, it’s also an idea that I think could easily be thought of by multiple people at different times without knowledge of each other.

Harris stopped writing in 1930. The reason was she wanted to focus on raising her three sons. She was quite popular, and her name was regularly appearing on the covers of magazines.

The one exception is the story “The Vibrometer”, which is reprinted for the first time in The Artificial Man. In 1933, a young high school-aged fan in Cleveland wrote Clare a fan letter and asked her to contribute to a fanzine he and a buddy were putting together.  The fanzine was simply called Science Fiction. Copies are extremely rare. The fan’s name? Jerry Seigel, and his friend was Joe Shuster.  They would later go on to create the character of Superman.

I really liked this story, and I intend to read the rest of this book later this year. Clare Winger Harris was a good writer, and the field lost a unique voice when she quit writing.