Charlton Lawrence Edholm (1879-1945)

Artist, Illustrator, Poet, Author

Born March 21, 1879, Omaha, Nebraska

Died September 13, 1945, Dobbs Ferry, New York

Charlton Lawrence Edholm was a versatile artist and a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Born on March 21, 1879, in Omaha, Nebraska, Edholm was the son of a pair of writers and lecturers. He traveled widely and lived at one time or another in Los Angeles, Arizona, Washington, D.C., The Bronx, and Dobbs Ferry, New York. Edholm studied art in Stuttgart and Munich under Ludwig Herterich (1856-1932), a painter and teacher of the Munich School. (Herterich's pupils also included Käthe Kollwitz [1867-1945].) In addition to being a painter in the style of the French Impressionists, Edholm worked in pastel, created illustrations for various magazines, held one-man shows, and exhibited his work at the Whitney Gallery in New York.

During World War I, Edholm wrote for the Inter-Racial Council in Washington, D.C. He was also the editor of the magazines Live Stories and Out West. His list of publishing credits is very long and includes everything from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to The Saturday Evening Post, The Smart Set, and Ladies Home Journal to Top-Notch and Sweetheart Stories. Edholm wrote science fiction and fantasy for Astounding Stories ("Ping Ting," October 1933) and Weird Tales ("The Man Who Was Damned," June 1927, and "The Rose Window," August 1928). He was also published in the hero pulp The Phantom Detective. In addition to writing poems for many magazines, Edholm authored articles, short stories, serials, and novels.

Charlton Lawrence Edholm came from a family of writers, and he lived with a family of writers. His mother, Mary Gow Charlton Edholm (1854-1935), was a reformer and lecturer and wrote for the Phrenological Journal, Christian Reformer, and other journals. His Swedish-born father, Osborn L. Edholm, was a journalist. Charlton Edholm's wife, Lizette MacCully Edholm (1878-1967), wrote four books in the Merriweather Girls series, all published in the year 1932. The Edholms' daughter, Mayzette Golan, was also an author of children's books. Unfortunately I haven't found any of her works yet.

Charlton L. Edholm settled in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and took part in the cultural life of that small town on the Hudson River. Edholm died in Dobbs Ferry on September 13, 1945 (not September 14 as has been reported elsewhere on the Internet). He was sixty-six years old.

Charlton Lawrence Edholm's Stories in Weird Tales

"The Man Who Was Damned" (June 1927)

"The Rose Window" (August 1928)

Further Reading

Much of Charlton Edholm's verse and some of his prose is available on the Internet.

Two poems by Edholm:

Sonnet to the Sonnet

By Charlton Lawrence Edholm

Like one whose youth with many loves was blest, 

    Do I the girl-names of my verse recall, 


    As Rondeau, Ballad, Lied, and Madrigal; 

As eastern Rubai, Ghazel, and the rest

Who, each in her turn, seemed the loveliest, 


    Till, when you came, I found the charms of all 

    Encompassed in your beauty prodigal, 

As bygone loves sleep in the true love's breast.

Their rhymes and rhythms that with the ear coquette, 

Their names that link with Mimi and Musette,

    (Sweet, wilful names for light-o'-loves of song!)

Their fragile forms to charm a lover's eye,

How dear they were! I kissed and passed them by

    For you, my Sonnet, chaste, serene, and strong.

From The New England Magazine, 1907

A poem by Edholm from 1908.

Argosy All-Story Weekly for March 17, 1928, with Charlton Lawrence Edholm's byline on the cover.

Edholm's wife, Lizette Edholm, was also an author. Here is a reproduction of the dust jacket for one of her four Merriweather Girls novels from 1932. Lizette also wrote a book called Ship Ahoy! published in 1934.

Text and captions copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley