Alpheus Hyatt Verrill

Who was Alpheus Hyatt Verrill?

Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, known as Hyatt Verrill, was an American zoologist, explorer, inventor, illustrator and author. He was the son of Addison Emery Verrill, the first professor of zoology at Yale University.

Hyatt Verrill wrote on a wide variety of topics, including natural history, travel, radio and whaling. He participated in a number of archaeological expeditions to the West Indies, South, and Central America. He travelled extensively throughout the West Indies, and all of the Americas, North, Central and South. Theodore Roosevelt stated: "It was my friend Verrill here, who really put the West Indies on the map.”

During 1896 he served as natural history editor of Webster's International Dictionary., and he illustrated many of his own writings as well. In 1902 Verrill invented the autochrome process of natural-color photography.

Among his writings are many science fiction works including twenty six published in Amazing Stories pulp magazines. Upon his death, P. Schuyler Miller noted that Verrill "was one of the most prolific and successful writers of our time," with 115 books to his credit as well as "articles in innumerable newspapers." Everett F. Bleiler described Verrill's "lost race" stories as "more literate than most of their competition, but stodgy."