Francis H. P. Knight

(1886 – 19??)

Francis H. P. Knight was a fan from Walsall (near Birmingham, UK) active in the 1930s. He was a member of the Science Fiction Association (SFA), joining in August 1938, and a long-term correspondent of C. S. Lewis.

Knight was a member of the British Interplanetary Society from at least 1934, and possibly a founder member as he's mentioned several times in its second bulletin. He was an occasional contributor to Novae Terrae, writing in July 1937 'As you will issue a journal with a Latin title I have enclosed a Latin translation of part of this letter…' In a letter in August 1938 he said, 'Besides, admitting an age of 19,000 days, I may be Victorian in outlook.' The round number works out exactly to 52 years, a week and a day; factoring in possible rounding and the letter/publishing delay, this implies birth in summer 1886. In the same letter, Knight wrote:

The undersigned must confess that he hoards a large collection of s-f mags from 1926 onwards, as well as some volumes. He has no intention of parting with these before his translation to another Dimension. Some of these stories are variations only of older ones; but some I can read over and over again:- here are three titles only: 'Spacehounds of the I.P.C.' 'A Voice Across the Years' 'Exiles on Asperus'.

Knight attended at least one London SFA meeting in October 1938. In December 1938 Novae Terrae reported he was

exchanging letters with C. S. Lewis, author of new hit s-f novel Out of the Silent Planet, resident of Magdalen College, Oxford

In a letter (see below), CSL implied Knight was "a fellow Christian and a fellow Churchman". In November 2023, the auctioneers Bonhams sold a group of 14 Lewis books, seven inscribed to Knight, plus some letters and postcards for £25,600; the seller saying his grandfather Francis Bowler had worked in a library where Knight had been a regular visitor and bequeathed the books to Bowler. Knight and Lewis met in early 1939 (on March 11, CSL wrote "With … happiest recollections of a pleasant meeting") and continued to correspond on very friendly terms, with CSL gifting his books (it is also clear that FHPK was one of his earliest letter-fans) until at least November 1956. As this is the last date of the books included in the lot (The Last Battle), it makes sense to surmise that Knight pre-deceased the younger Lewis.

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Person

1886—????

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