Harrie Irving Hancock (January 16, 1868 – March 12, 1922) was an American chemist and writer, mainly remembered as an author ofchildren's literature andjuveniles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and as having written a fictional depiction of aGerman invasion of the United States.
Hancock was born inMassachusetts on January 16, 1868. His parents were William Henry and Laura (Oakes) Hancock. Hancock married Nellie Stein on December 21, 1887. They had two daughters, apparently adopted: Vivian Morris Hancock and Doris Hancock.
A prolific author who liked to work at night, Hancock wrote for theNew York Journal, theNew York World, andLeslie's Weekly. Much of his writing was the kind of "Boy's books" initiated by the famousStratemeyer Syndicate, based on the assumption (which proved hugely successful) that "boys want the thrill of feeling 'grown-up'" and that they like books which give them that feeling to come in series where the same heroes appear again and again. However, the bulk of Hancock's works in that genre appear to have been handled by publishers other than Stratemeyer. (A comprehensive list of his publications does not yet exist, the list appearing on this page being far from complete).
For some time it was considered that, unlike other writers, he invariably used his own name, in the form "H. Irving Hancock".[1] However, Edward T. LeBlanc and J. Randolph Cox, who researched the period's "dime novels", concluded that a series of books attributed to "Douglas Wells" were in fact written by Hancock.[2]
The same researchers recount that Hancock "had been a journalist for theBoston Globe from 1885 to 1890 [and] produced more than 50 serials forNorman Munro'sjuvenile magazineGolden Hours between 1889 and 1901." In 1898 Hancock travelled to Cuba with the US forces as one of several "embedded" reporters and published an account of his war experiences later the same year under the titleWhat One Man Saw, Being the Personal Impressions of a War Correspondent in Cuba.[3] He also reported on the US-Spanish war in the Philippines.
His output includedwesterns,detective stories (set inNew Orleans and inAsia), and historical adventures. China and Japan were the setting of such stories as 'The Great Tan-To; or Dick Brent's Adventures in Up-to-Date Japan'." Hancock was charged with perpetuatingracial stereotypes in his depiction of theChinese "Supervillain" Li Shoon in a series of stories published between 1915 and 1917". Conversely, he had a sympathetic attitude toward Japan, setting stories there and coauthoring a book onju-jitsu with a noted Japanese adept in the art.[4]
Hancock's experience as awar correspondent provided inspiration for books about the Spanish–American War. He also published books onphysical fitness and anEncyclopedia of Knowledge and Manners, and served as the editor of a "History ofWest Point". In a magazine article he warned of the dangers ofsmoking, at a time when such dangers were not widely known. He was also apparently asports writer and an early Western expert onJiu-Jitsu.
Much of Hancock's writing had apatriotic character, his books and stories having a considerable proportion of military heroes placed in settings ranging from theAmerican Revolutionary War, through the Spanish–American War and theFirst World War, and up to an imaginary German invasion of the United States (see following section).
In addition to his writing activity, Hancock organized the Ferguson-Hancock Laboratories together with Prof. George A. Ferguson in 1908.
Hancock died ofliver ailments at his home, inBlue Point,Suffolk County, New York on March 12, 1922.
Despite the enormous amount of material published by Hancock, some of his biographical details are not completely clear. The 1920United States Federal Census contains the following: "H. Hancock, Birth: abt 1868 – Massachusetts Residence: 1920 – Brookhaven, Suffolk, New York". This seems to refer to Harrie Irving Hancock, but it is not completely certain—hence the above question mark following the date of his birth.[5]
According to Gene Horton ofBlue Point, Hancock is buried in an unmarked grave at the Blue Point Cemetery.
One Hancock book still in print isThe Complete Kano Jiu-Jitsu (Judo), co-authored with Katsukuma Higashi and originally published by G. P. Putnam & Sons in 1905 in New York (presently republished byDover Publications).[6]
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Hancock's four-book series The Invasion of the United States, published in 1916, depicted a fictional invasion of the United States by Germany in 1920–21—reflecting, and to some degree helping to intensify, the shift of American public opinion towards getting involved in theFirst World War. It was an American representative of the subgenre known asinvasion literature which originated inBritain and was frequent in the early Twentieth Century. This kind of book was criticised —by some politicians at the time and by historians and researchers later— with intensifying bellicose public attitudes in various countries and contributing to escalation and war. Others treated them as reasonable anticipations of the current situation, such asArthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 story “Danger!”, in which Britain is brought to her knees by an unnamed power cutting off her food supplies usingsubmarine warfare.
The series may have been influenced byWilliam Le Queux'sThe Great War in England in 1897 (1894) in which the French launch a surprise invasion of England and penetrate into the heart ofLondon but are finally defeated after much desperate and heroic fighting by the British protagonists. The book was highly popular in the early Twentieth Century, and Hancock is likely to have read it.
In Hancock's far more extensive version, constituting no less than four books, it is theGermans who launch a surprise attack in 1920, captureBoston despite heroic resistance by "Uncle Sam's boys", overrun all ofNew England andNew York and reach as far asPittsburgh—but are at last are gloriously crushed by fresh American forces. From the present-day point of view, it can be considered as "retroactive"alternate history.
Hancock's plot has a difficulty in that it assumes either an overwhelming German victory over the British, giving them mastery of the seas, or a British "friendlyneutrality" and a free hand to invade America. Further, it assumes theGerman Navy to be capable of utterly defeating theUS Navy, followed by ferrying no less than a million German troops across theAtlantic and keeping them supplied for years-long hard fighting. The experience of the first two years of the actual war, at the time of writing, already conclusively proved the Kaiserliche Marine manifestly incapable of anything remotely of the kind. In actuality it was US soldiers who—a year after the story's publication—would pour across a British-dominated Atlantic to assault Germany in Europe. Hancock, therefore, assumed that Germany had won the World War, and that the USA had not built up its Navy and Army (the men fighting remark several times that the politicians had neglected the national defense).
The war launched by the German Empire in the story is intended, not to conquer the US, but to pressure it to give up theMonroe Doctrine. This will leave Germany free to seize parts of Brazil, and take colonies elsewhere in the New World. Hancock has it follow the actual, hypotheticalImperial German plans for the invasion of the United States, involving the bombardment of New York and the seizure of Boston. A neutral or US-hostile Canada is assumed; in the story, this is because of US failure to aid Britain, leading to her defeat in the World War. Peace would then be negotiated, with a reduced US military, and parts of the Eastern Seaboard occupied by Imperial German troops, as a guarantee against further opposition to German plans for expansion
However,alternate history writer and analyst Dale Cozort notes that "(...)The broad outline of the war [depicted] is so much like what actually happened between Germany and Russia 25 or so years later, inWorld War II, that it's almost uncanny. The Germans win battle after battle but the opposition moves industry out of their reach, builds up overwhelming superiority in manpower and strategic mobility, then cuts off the cream of the German army. Sounds a lot likeEastern Front World War II up throughStalingrad".[7] Cozort also notes that Hancock's is one of the first fictional depictions of war to make reference totanks.
Hancock appears to have been among the first American writers to graphically describe their country being devastatingly invaded by powerful enemies—reflecting the disruption of the hitherto dominant Americanisolationist mindset. In later decades he was followed by a host of others depicting the US being fictionally invaded byNazi Germany,Imperial Japan, theSoviet Union and China, as well as a considerable array ofextraterrestrial aliens (seeInvasion literature,Yellow Peril,Earth in fiction,The Man in the High Castle,The Ultimate Solution). In effect, this subgenre went full circle with thealternative history novel1901 byRobert Conroy, depicting a fictitious invasion of the United States byKaiser Wilhelm's Germany in the title year, bearing quite a bit of resemblance to Hancock's work. They may have both drawn from the same set of speculative war plans made by the German Empire.
Many of Hancock's books also appeared in the Street and Smith's "Bound to Win" series (see the following).
Note: many of the above books were reprinted by theSaafield Company, after theHenry Altemus Company failed. The Saafield editions are on high acid content paper, and few surviving copies are in good condition. The Altemus books are far superior in quality.
Note: the series, published in 1916, describes a fictional German invasion of the US, dated in 1920–21.
The Ogilive books are stated to have been part of a yearly subscription service, The Sunset Series (cost $9.00).
Hancock may also have written theSubmarine Boys series of young adult books pseudonymously as Victor G. Durham.[8]
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