Very few knew that it was Garrett Serviss, who successfully cloaked his identity for years.

Success in written popularizing of science led him to attempt its duplication on the lecture platform. There his triumphs were such as to lead him to resign as night editor of the _Sun_ in 1892 and make astronomy his life work. Until 1894 he was occupied with "The Urania Lectures." These were sponsored by Andrew Carnegie, and dealt with geology, astronomy, archeology and similar scientific topics. With them Serviss successfully toured the country, and it was only because of the great difficulty in transporting the elaborate staging equipment they required that they were eventually discontinued. He continued to give popular lectures, however, and one of his few biographers has credited his greatness on the rostrum to "a pleasant voice, a charming personality, and a genuine enthusiasm for his subject."

One cannot doubt this enthusiasm; it shines forth unmistakably from all his writings. Probably, too, it played the major part in enabling him to reach a wider reading public than any other astronomer before or after him. For he never abandoned the pen. Up until his death, which occurred on May 25, 1929, he wrote continually, syndicated newspaper columns, magazine articles, books on astronomy, fiction.

His first book, _Astronomy with an Opera Glass_, appeared in 1888. He was responsible for several other scientific titles (the reader is referred to the bibliography at the end of this volume for a detailed listing); they include _Einstein's Theory of Relativity_, which is a companion work to the motion picture of the same name. He was also editor-in-chief of Collier's sixteen-volume _Popular Science Library_. It might be added that much of the editing and captioning of the Einstein film was his work, and that he collaborated with Leon Barritt in the invention of the Barritt-Serviss Star and Planet Finder, a device still in use.

In comparison with his other writings his output of fiction is small: five novels and a single short story. It is, however, characterized by the same logic and interest, this time tossed aloft to soar on the wings of romantic imagination. Two of these works deal in some detail with the world of the future as he thought it might be--prophetic fiction, if you will; another two give us a picture of life on neighboring planets; and the final couple, although they maintain a terrestrial locale, show as wide a scope of creative invention.

In only one of these does astronomy fail to play at least a supporting role. That is _The Sky Pirate_ (1909), which is an adventure story laid in the year 1936. Its plot revolves around an abduction for ransom in a period which is visualized as rampant with piracy because of the general adoption of air transportation. As usual, fact has outmoded prophecy, for long before 1936 airplane speeds exceeded the 140 miles per hour Serviss predicted. We still need, though, his invention which enables badly damaged aircraft to drift slowly down to a safe landing.