Norvell W. Page

Norvell Wordsworth Page (July 6, 1904 – August 14, 1961) was an American pulp fiction writer, journalist and editor who later became a government intelligence worker. He is best known as the prolific writer of The Spider pulp magazine novels (1933–1943).

Early life He was born in Virginia, the son of Charles Wordsworth Page (1880–1947) and Estlie Isabelle Bethel Page (1880–1946). The name Norvell came from his maternal grandmother Elvira Russell Norvell Page.

Career Between 1924 and 1934 Page worked for the Cincinnati Post, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York World-Telegram.

Page spent 12 years as a newspaperman, doing many dirty jobs and seeing many corpses in the morgues. When he did start writing, it was western stories, a subject he knew nothing about, but they sold. Finally the editor who bought the stories suggested he write about something he knew, like gangsters. One of Page's earliest stories was a mystery story, "The Devil Muscles In", written for the November 1930 issue of Detective-Dragnet Magazine, as by N. Wooten Page.

He also contributed to other pulp series, including The Black Bat and The Phantom Detective, and supplied scripts for the radio programs based on the characters he wrote, science fiction and two early sword and sorcery fantasy novels under forms of his real name, Norvel Page and Norvell W. Page. His 1940 Unknown novel But Without Horns is considered an early classic explication of the superman theme.

Page was elected as president of the American Fiction Guild, serving the year from November 1934 through October 1935.

In 1943 he began working for the US government, including the Atomic Energy Commission, the President's Scientific Research Board, the President's Ten Year Health Program, the two Hoover Commissions, and the President's Materials Policy Commission.

He died of a heart attack on August 14, 1961.