WRITER

Harlan Ellison

1934 - 2018

Photo of Harlan Ellison

Icon of person Harlan Ellison

Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise (he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original teleplay), his A Boy and His Dog cycle (which was made into a film), and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Harlan Ellison has received more than 3,441,236 page views. His biography is available in 38 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 37 in 2019). Harlan Ellison is the 2,682nd most popular writer (down from 2,545th in 2019), the 3,392nd most popular biography from United States (down from 3,311th in 2019) and the 294th most popular American Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.4M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 53.87

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 38

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 2.47

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 4.96

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Deathbird stories
American Science fiction, Fantasy fiction, American, American Fantasy fiction
Spider Kiss
Rock musicians, Fiction
If you thought the only thing Ellison writes is speculative fiction, craziness about giant cockroaches that attack Detroit or invaders from space who look like pink eggplant and smell like chicken soup, this dynamite novel of the emergent days of rock and roll will turn you around at least three times. No spaceships, no robots, just a nice kid from Louisville with a voice like an angel and an invisible monkey named Success riding him straight to hell…
Approaching Oblivion
American Science fiction, Collections, Science fiction
Dangerous Visions
Science fiction
Strange Wine
Fantasy fiction, American, American Fantasy fiction
Shatterday
Fiction, Manners and customs
Mercurial, belligerent, passionately in love with language and wild ideas. Harlan Ellison has, for exactly a quarter of a century, steadily gathered to himself and his thirty-seven books an undeniably fanatical readership. Winner of more awards for imaginative literature than any other living writer, he is the only scenarist ever to win the Writers Guild of America award three times for most outstanding teleplay. Though his contemporary fantasies have been compared favorably with the dark visions of Borges, Barthelme, Poe and Kafka, Ellison resists categorization with a vehemence that alienates critics and reviewers seeking easy pigeonholes for an extraordinary writer. The San Francisco Chronicle writes, "The categories are too small to describe Harlan Ellison. Lyric poet, satirist, explorer of odd psychological corners, moralist, purveyor of pure horror and black comedy; he is all these and more. In this, his thirty-seventh book, celebrating twenty-five years of setting down the mortal dreads we all share, Harlan Ellison has put together his best work to date: sixteen uncollected stories (half of which are award-winners), totaling a marvel-filled 105,000 words and including a brand-new novella, his longest work in over a dozen years.
The Hugo Winners [volume I]
American Science fiction, Science fiction, Accessible book
An Anthology of Hugo award winners. The highest prize in Sci-Fi. Each of these stories, by different authors, was voted as the best novella/short story of a particular year. Asimov was also the editor or something. I have read it and loved it. Science Fiction at it's best.
Again, Dangerous Visions
American Science fiction, English Science fiction, Science fiction, American
Harlan Ellison's The city on the edge of forever (teleplay)
Star trek (Television program), Star Trek fiction, collectionID:STnov
From the Land of Fear
Fiction, science fiction, short stories, Fiction, historical, general
The Dark Descent
Horror tales, American Horror tales, English Horror tales
pt. 1. The color of evil. The reach / Stephen King -- Evening primrose / John Collier -- The ash-tree / M.R. James -- The new mother / Lucy Clifford -- There's a long, long trail a-winding / Russell Kirk -- The call of Cthulhu / H.P. Lovecraft -- The summer people / Shirley Jackson -- The whimper of whipped dogs / Harlan Ellison -- [Young Goodman Brown](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455569W/Young_Goodman_Brown) / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Mr. Justice Harbottle -- J. Sheridan Le Fanu -- The crowd / Ray Bradbury -- The autopsy / Michael Shea -- John Charrington's wedding / E. Nesbit -- Sticks / Karl Edward Wagner -- Larger than oneself / Robert Aickman -- Belsen Express / Fritz Leiber -- Yours truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch -- If Damon comes / Charles L. Grant -- Vandy, Vandy / Manly Wade Wellman -- pt. 2. The Medusa in the shield. The swords / Robert Aickman -- The roaches / Thomas M. Disch -- Bright segment / Theodore Sturgeon -- Dread / Clive Barker -- The fall of the house of Usher / Edgar Allan Poe -- The monkey / Stephen King -- Within the walls of Tyre / Michael Bishop -- The rats in the walls / H.P. Lovecraft -- Schalken the painter / J. Sheridan Le Fanu -- The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- A rose for Emily / William Faulkner -- How love came to Professor Guildea / Robert Hichens -- Born of man and woman / Richard Matheson -- My dear Emily / Joanna Russ -- You can go now / Dennis Etchison -- The rocking-horse winner / D.H. Lawrence -- Three days / Tanith Lee -- Good country people / Flannery O'Connor -- Mackintosh Willy / Ramsey Campbell -- The jolly corner / Henry James -- pt. 3. A fabulous formless darkness. Smoke ghost / Fritz Leiber -- Seven American nights / Gene Wolfe -- The signal-man / Charles Dickens -- [Crouch End](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19650699W/Crouch_End) / Stephen King -- Night-side / Joyce Carol Oates -- Seaton's aunt / Walter de la Mare -- Clara Militch / Ivan Turgenev -- The repairer of reputations / Robert W. Chambers -- The beckoning fair one / Oliver Onions -- What was it? / Fitz-James O'Brien -- The beautiful stranger / Shirley Jackson -- [The damned thing](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20084265W/The_Damned_Thing) / Ambrose Bierce -- Afterward / Edith Wharton -- The willows / Algernon Blackwood -- The Asian shore / Thomas M. Disch -- The hospice / Robert Aickman -- A little something for us tempunauts / Philip K. Dick.
Approaching Oblivion
American Science fiction, Collections, Science fiction

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Harlan Ellison ranks 2,682 out of 7,302Before him are Edith Pargeter, Bhavabhuti, Herbert Read, Krishna Sobti, Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Petar Hektorović. After him are Labīd, Jacques Collin de Plancy, Alex Haley, Jean-François de La Harpe, David Lagercrantz, and Giuseppe Giacosa.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1934, Harlan Ellison ranks 175Before him are Bill Cobbs, Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab, Bernard Chiarelli, Frankie Valli, Boris Volynov, and Anna Maria Ferrero. After him are Marc Rich, Pierre Barouh, Lau Kar-leung, Eddie Fenech Adami, Gino Paoli, and Del Shannon. Among people deceased in 2018, Harlan Ellison ranks 155Before him are June Whitfield, José Antonio Abreu, Neil Simon, Lindsay Kemp, William Goldman, and Anna Maria Ferrero. After him are Dobri Dobrev, Vladimir Voinovich, Walter Laqueur, Sinan Sakić, David Ogden Stiers, and Ara Güler.

Others Born in 1934

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Others Deceased in 2018

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Harlan Ellison ranks 3,392 out of 20,380Before him are Chris Tucker (1971), Ma Rainey (1886), George Pullman (1831), Tom Hulce (1953), Philip Kaufman (1936), and Edwin Catmull (1945). After him are Alex Haley (1921), Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš (1964), Marlee Matlin (1965), Paul Castellano (1915), Seth Rollins (1986), and Mick Mars (1951).

Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Harlan Ellison ranks 294Before him are Orson Scott Card (1951), Eric Carle (1929), Richard Bandler (1950), John Cheever (1912), William Goldman (1931), and Michael Cunningham (1952). After him are Alex Haley (1921), Horace McCoy (1897), Robert M. Pirsig (1928), Henry Darger (1892), Eric Roth (1945), and Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe (1822).