A TALE OF TWO (OR ONE) UFO AUTHORS OF THE HOUSE OF HORWITZ - HOLLEDGE & HERVEY

Australia's first 3 books on flying saucers or UFOs emerged from the publishing house Horwitz:

The first was in 1965: "Flying Saucers over Australia". Oddly on the cover it indicated "by James Holledge" and on the title page the book is indicated as "compiled by Stephen Holledge".

The 3rd UFO book in OZ was by Michael Hervey: "UFOs over the Southern Hemisphere" in 1969.

Up until recently I thought that the 2 books were by 2 different authors.

Both "James (or Stephen) Holledge" (apparently living from 1922 to1998) and "Michael Hervey" (born 1915 or 1920 and passing away apparently in 1979) were very prolific authors. 

Some of Holledge's books:

Some of Hervey's books:

I was checking out both authors in a bit more detail.  

Holledge doesn't seem to have any history outside of his stint with Horwitz and this limited information is well covered in Andrew Nette's great site "Pulp Curry":

http://www.pulpcurry.com/2014/06/pulp-friday-notorious-women/

http://www.pulpcurry.com/2013/05/pulp-friday-kings-cross-black-magic-2/

Michael Hervey certainly had a colourful history beyond his time with Horwitz.  Born either in 1915 or 1920 as Mark Hockman, then later Mark Hoffman, finally changing his name to Michael Hervey before he moved to Australia. Hervey's early background is fleshed out a bit here:

http://www.blackmask.com/category/michael-hervey/

but Juri Nummelin did not know much of Hervey beyond his transition to Australia.  Using Trove establishes he was a very prolific short story writer and an occasional long form writer.  

I found that Hervey did a 10 part series for the Argus newspaper in Melbourne from October to December 1953 entitled "Notorious Women".  James Holledge has a Horwitz book first published in 1962 called "Notorious Women"!  Another title by Holledge was "Australia's Wicked Women." During the 1960s through Horwitz Holledge comes out with a book called "Crimes which shocked Australia!"  In about 1978 through Cassell publishing Hervey came out with a book called "Violent Australian Crimes" (another about the same time by Hervey was titled "Famous Australian Crimes") 

Here is a picture of Michael Hervey around 1969 promoting his UFO book:

(1969 - Horwitz (Australia) & 1975 - Hale (UK))

All this certainly got me thinking.  

Hervey apparently in latter days for writing dining reviews got into some hot water. This received media coverage in local newspaper reporting in Sydney.  Back in 1954 or so he had a court appearance re-using stamps - major crime, woo ...?  His name changes and prolific writing fit well with the Horwitz writer template.  Maybe Holledge's name was used by whoever was operating at the time?  I never came across a picture of Holledge.  Maybe there was an explanation for that.  Perhaps he was a pulp author name for use in the Horwitz stable of writers?

How certain is the biographical information on Holledge (1922-1998)? Not much it seems. There seems to be uncertainty with Hervey, at least with his birth date.

Was Hervey Holledge? 

If anyone wants to weigh into this minor book author mystery (certainly those who may be better informed about the possible separate or connected lives of James Holledge and Michael Hervey?) I would love to hear from you.