Homer C. Nearing Jr (April 15, 1915 – May 29, 2004) was an American professor and author of mathematically themed short fiction, often under the byline "H. Nearing Jr."."Obituary for H(omer) Nearing, Jr." Locus Magazine, June 2006, issue 545, page 82.
Fiction and poetry Nearing is best known for his humorous Professor Cleanth Penn Ransom seriesAnatomy of Wonder 4: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction edited by Neil Barron, R.R. Bowker, 1995, page 181. published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the early 1950s,Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, 3rd edition, by James Gunn, McFarland 2018, page 199 with the protagonist being a surreal head of the mathematics department at Uh-Uh University.Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia by Brian Stableford, Taylor & Francis, 2006, page 287. One of Nearing's Professor Ransom short stories "The Maladjusted Classroom" was reprinted in the 1954 edition of The Best from Fantasy and Science FictionThe Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: Third series, edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, Doubleday and Company, 1954, page 134. while "The Cerebrative Psittacoid" was reprinted in Best SF, edited by Edmund Crispin.Best SF edited by Edmund Crispin, Faber and Faber, 1962, page 214."Something To Read" by Kenneth F. Slater, Nebula Science Fiction No. 12., April 1955. His story "The Mathematical Voodoo," about a teacher struggling to teach math to students,"Review: The Mathematical Voodoo by H. Nearing, Jr.," The Guide to Supernatural Fiction by Everett F. Bleiler, Kent State University Press, 1983, page 68. was reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica, a 1958 anthology on mathematical topics compiled by Clifton Fadiman."Review of Fantasia Mathematica" by Allen Stenger, Mathematical Association of America, published 01/22/2019. A sequel featuring Professor Ransom entitled "The Hermeneutical Doughnut" was published in Fadiman's sequel anthology "The Mathematical Magpie".
Seven of the Professor Ransom stories from F&SF were also reprinted alongside four new storiesThe Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: Third series, edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, Doubleday and Company, 1954, page 152. in The Sinister Researches of C.P. Ransom, released in 1954 by Doubleday.Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature edited by Douglas Menville and Mary A. Burgess, Wildside Press, 1979, page 382.The Best Science-fiction Stories and Novels edited by Everett Franklin Bleiler and Thaddeus Eugene Dikty, Advent: Publishers, 1955, page 536.The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: An Illustrated A to Z edited by Peter Nicholls, Granada, 1979, page 421. The collection functioned as a "consistently funny"The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: An Illustrated A to Z edited by Peter Nicholls, Granada, 1979, page 299. fix-up novel about the attempts by a pair of professors to create a union between science and the arts by experimenting with different strange devices.Publishers Weekly, volume 165, page 1376, 1954. The book was reprinted in paperback in 1969 by Curtis Books and rereleased in 2015 by Singularity&Co, with a new review in Amazing Stories calling the stories "delightfully whimsical.""Scide Splitters: The Sinister Researches of C. P. Ransom by H. Nearing, Jr." by David Kilman, Amazing Stories, Sept. 16, 2015.
Nearing also published poetry in The New Yorker.An Index to Literature in The New Yorker: Volumes XVI-XXX, 1940-1955 by Robert Owen Johnson, Scarecrow Press, 1969, page 26.
Academic career In addition to writing fiction, Nearing was a published expert on historical English poetry and on British traditions concerning Julius Caesar.
He was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and as an undergraduate competed on the university's varsity swimming team, earning a letter in 1934, 1935, and 1936. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees, he completed his doctorate there in 1944, with the dissertation English Historical Poetry, 1599-1641.Catalog entry for English Historical Poetry, 1599-1641 in the Pennsylvania State University library, accessed 2021-12-27
After working as a schoolteacher at Perkiomen School and the Episcopal Academy and as a manager at a shipbuilding company, he became a professor of English at Pennsylvania Military College, which became Widener University in 1972. The Homer C. Nearing Jr. Distinguished Professorship at Widener University is named for him.
Personal life Nearing married Alice Eleanor Jones, who like Nearing earned a doctorate in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1944 and wrote speculative fiction. They had two children.Jones's biography from
Bibliography English Historical Poetry, 1599–1641 (1945) The Sinister Researches of C.P. Ransom (Doubleday, 1954, 217 pp.) Dust jacket design by Edward Gorey.
References
External links