Gordon MacCreagh (1889 inPerth, Indiana[1][2] – 1953) was an American writer.
MacCreagh was the son of Scottish parents, possibly born in Perth, Indiana in 1889 while his father, an anthropologist, was visiting the United States to study Native Americans.[3] However, according to MacCreagh's biography -Indiana MacCreagh (ISBN 978-1-78955-500-4) by Roderick Heather, it is much more likely that he was born and educated in Scotland and later studied in Paris and Germany. Mistakenly believing he had killed a fellow student in aGerman sabre duel, he fled to Southeast Asia, where he lived for several years.[2] MacCreagh worked inCalcutta,Darjeeling, theMalay Islands, Tibet, China andBurma, where he collected animal specimens.[3] He then travelled to Africa where he captured wild animals for British and US zoos.MacCreagh arrived in New York in 1911, where he later began to write fiction.[3] He wrote several short adventure stories for magazines such asArgosy,Adventure andShort Stories.[4] He travelled in South America on theMulford Expedition. His bookWhite Waters and Black published 1926 is an account of the expedition.[2]
He also travelled toAbyssinia with his wife in 1927, on an expedition to locate theArk of the Covenant.[4][5] His account was serialised inAdventure and published as a bookThe Last of Free Africa. After the book's publication, MacCreagh was made a "Knight of the Empire" by EmperorHaile Selassie.[2] He revisited Ethiopia several times and became a friend of Haile Selassie. MacCreagh served as a US Navy pilot in World War I and volunteered for special service for the US and British armed forces in World War II.
Science fiction historianRichard Bleiler has suggested that MacCreagh was an inspiration for the fictional character ofIndiana Jones.[5]
MacCreagh died in Florida in 1953 of abdominal cancer.[6]
147 short stories in pulp magazinesAdventure (magazine),Short Stories,Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror,Argosy.[7]
Works by or aboutGordon MacCreagh atWikisource{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)| International | |
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