Luis Senarens

Who was Luis Senarens?

Luis Philip Senarens was an American dime novel writer specializing in science fiction, once called "the American Jules Verne". He grew up in a Cuban-American family in Brooklyn.

Around 1882, Senarens began writing new stories in the Frank Reade adventure story series begun by Harry Enton in 1868. Senarens introduced Frank Reade, Jr. as the new main character, and added elements such as electricity. The stories were very successful, and by the 1890s Senarens was asked by publisher Frank Tousey to write a similar series featuring Jack Wright, the "Boy Inventor". Later in the decade, Tousey created the Frank Reade Library, a periodical devoted to "invention" stories, largely composed by Senarens using the pseudonym Noname. Mike Ashley calls him "the first prolific writer of science fiction". He would eventually write more than 300 dime novels.

In 1917 Senarens became the editor of the Tousey detective story periodical, Mystery Magazine.