Miles J. Breuer

Miles John Breuer (January 3, 1889 – October 14, 1945) was an American physician and science fiction writer of Czech origin. Although he has published elsewhere since the early 20th century, he is considered the part of the first generation of writers to appear regularly in the pulp science fiction magazines, publishing his first story, "The Man with the Strange Head", in the January 1927 issue of "Amazing Stories". His best known works are "The Gostak and the Doshes" (1930) and two stories written jointly with Jack Williamson, "The Girl from Mars" (1929) and "The Birth of a New Republic" (1931).
Early life and medical career.
Breuer was born in Chicago, in 1889, to Charles (Karel) and Barbara Breuer, Czech immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The family moved to Nebraska in 1893 while Charles pursued a medical degree at Creighton University in Omaha, and Miles grew up in the Czech community of Crete, Nebraska. Miles graduated from Crete High School in 1906, and went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Texas in 1911. After earning a medical degree from Rush Medical College which at the time was at the University of Chicago in 1915, Miles joined his father's medical practice in Nebraska. In 1916 Miles married Julia Strejc and the couple had three children, Rosalie, Stanley, and Mildred.
During World War I Miles Breuer served for twenty months in France as a first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps. Rejoining his father's medical practice after the war, Breuer contributed frequent medical articles to Czech-language newspapers, as well as a monthly health column in the country's largest Czech-language agricultural monthly. In 1925 he published a handbook called "Index of Physiotherapeutic Technic", cataloging a variety of methods for physical therapy. Breuer suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1942, and shortly afterwards moved to Los Angeles, where he continued his medical practice until 1945, when he died after a brief illness.
Writing career.
Breuer's first published works of fiction appeared as early as in 1909 in various English-language (eg. early monthly pulp "10 Story Book") as well as US-based Czech-language publications (e.g. calendar "Amerikán", monthly "Bratrský věstník"). Breuer had long been interested in scientific romances, particularly those by H. G. Wells. When Hugo Gernsback founded the first science fiction magazine, "Amazing Stories", Breuer began submitting stories, publishing his first, "The Man with the Strange Head", in the January 1927 issue. Only a few months earlier this story also appeared in Chicago in Czech as "Muž se zvláštní hlavou" in yearly Czech-language calendar "Amerikán" for 1927. Over the next fifteen years Breuer went on to publish two novels, thirty-six shorter stories, and several other items for the science fiction magazines, including collaborations with Jack Williamson and Clare Winger Harris. A great majority were published in "Amazing Stories" (a monthly) and "Amazing Stories Quarterly". Of these stories, at least dozen were previously published in various non-genre publications, either in English, or Czech, or both languages.
Several of Breuer's stories have been included in anthologies and in 2008 Michael R. Page of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln edited a collection, "The Man with the Strange Head and Other Early Science Fiction Stories", comprising ten stories, the novel "Paradise and Iron", and Breuer's editorial essay "The Future of Scientifiction". Most recent article featuring also his Czech-language writing was published by Jaroslav Olša, jr. in Czech SF monthly XB-1 (November 2020), its abbreviated version is a chapbook "The Amazing Breuer. Early Czech-American Science Fiction Author Miloslav (Miles) J. Breuer (1889-1945)" (2020).
Jack Williamson called Breuer "among the first and best of the amateurs whose work Gernsback began to print." Walter Gillings stated that Breuer wrote "some of the most intriguing tales that appeared in the early volumes of "Amazing Stories,"" and John Clute described his work as crudely written, but intelligent and noted for new ideas.
Works by Miles J. Breuer.
This list is limited to speculative fiction as cataloged by the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. For Breuer as author or co-author, ISFDB lists the following one 1916 story and 44 items published from 1927 to 1942. It also catalogs ten letters to "Amazing Stories" and one to "Wonder Stories", all 1927–31, and one 1930 illustration.