Mortimer Levitan (1890-1968)

Abraham Mortimer Levitan
Author, Lecturer, Attorney, Banker, Gourmet, Book Collector, Traveler, Amateur Photographer
Born February 21, 1890, Leavenworth, Kansas
Died February 16, 1968, Madison, Wisconsin

Mortimer Levitan had a long and distinguished career completely outside the realm of magazine fiction. His writing career was brief, but it included a story, "The Third Thumb-Print," in Weird Tales, his only one for "The Unique Magazine" and his last listed in The FictionMags Index. It's worth noting that Levitan was born in the same year as H.P. Lovecraft and Jacob Clark Henneberger. I have found only one Mortimer Levitan in public records. I assume him to be our man.

Abraham Mortimer Levitan, also called Abe Mortimer Levitan, was born on February 21, 1890, in Leavenworth, Kansas. (Some sources say Glarus or New Glarus, Wisconsin, a place that has its own interesting history.) He was the son of Solomon Levitan and Dora T. (Andelson) Levitan of Leavenworth. Born in the Russian Empire, Sol Levitan (1862-1940) came to America as a child, his journey coming as a reward for having saved his uncle from a pogrom carried out in Crimea. The older Levitan started out as a laborer and a "pack peddler." He worked his way up into prominence, twice serving as Wisconsin state treasurer and working as a bank president. He was also a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1924, which chose Calvin Coolidge as its candidate. Coolidge was of course president during some very good months and years at Weird Tales, from August 1923 to March 1929. We don't often consider the historical context in which Weird Tales was published.

Mortimer Levitan attended grade school in Glarus and graduated from Madison High School. He went on to study at the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1913, and Harvard University, from which school he received his law degree in 1915. Levitan had his own private practice in law in Chicago and Madison until 1932, when he became Wisconsin state assistant attorney general, a post he held for twenty-five years. In his career he handled over 600 cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and several before the U.S. Supreme Court. His career as an attorney was interrupted only by his service in the U.S. Navy during World War I.

The FictionMags Index lists six short stories by Mortimer Levitan, all published from 1918 to 1925:

• "The Stop-Over," in Young's Magazine (Mar. 1918)
• "The Manliness of Mr. Barney," in Young's Magazine (May 1919)
• "Daniel Decides," in Snappy Stories (1st, Jan. 1920)
• "Crawford Gets Paid," in Short Stories (Nov. 10, 1921)
• "Legerdemain," in McClure's Magazine (May 1925)
• "The Third Thumb-Print," in Weird Tales (June 1925)

His story for Weird Tales touches on eugenics and phrenology. It involves a means of determining whether a man is a criminal before he commits his crime, as in the movie Minority Report (2002), based on the novella by Philip K. Dick.

Levitan was a world traveler and amateur photographer, but his main avocation was as a gourmet and collector of cookbooks. These eventually numbered 2,615. In 1965, he donated his collection to the University of Wisconsin in honor of his mother.

Mortimer Levitan never married. He died on February 16, 1968, just five days before his seventy-eighth birthday, in Madison. He was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison.

Mortimer Levitan's Story in Weird Tales
"The Third Thumb-Print" (June 1925) 

Further Reading

• "U.W. Savors Gift of 2,615 Cook Books from City's No. 1 Gourmet" by Vivien Hone, in The Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, January 14, 1965, page 1. This article includes a photograph of Levitan in his kitchen.
• "Mortimer Levitan, 77, Former Attorney General's Aide, Dies," in the Wisconsin State Journal, February 17, 1968, page 15. This article also includes a photograph of Levitan.
•  Many other newspaper articles.

(Abraham "Abe") Mortimer Levitan (1890-1968), his yearbook photograph from his senior year at the University of Wisconsin, 1913.

 

Text copyright 2025 Terence E. Hanley