Walter Gibson
(Germantown, Pennsylvania, 12th September 1897 - 6th December 1985)
Gibson’s interest in magic began at an early age, when in 1905 at the age of 8 he was given a trick box.
During the 1920s Gibson’s output was prolific. In total he produced 6,800 daily articles that appeared at a rate of 680 a year, including "After Dinner Tricks", "A Puzzle a Day", Magic Made Easy and others. Additionally he wrote weeklies, ghosted books for Thurston and released several books under his own name - in total he wrote 187 books.
In 1931 Gibson was approached by the pulp fiction magazine publishers Street and Smith, who wanted a writer to produce a pulp magazine series called "The Shadow", based on the character of a popular "Detective Radio Drama". Gibson delivered under the pen name Maxwell Grant (devised from his friendship with two stage magicians, Max Holden and U. F. Grant). It was such a success that he wrote some 283 shadow novels. Through all this time he maintained an estimated 1 Million words a year annual output.
Coauthors: Nancy Webb, Julien J. Proskauer
