Biography

Though he began as a reporter, Gibson had loved stage magic since childhood and collaborated with Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston, and Harry Blackstone. During the 1930s and 1940s, Gibson wrote for magazines, some self-help books, new magic books, and two novels. When he met (not his first wife) Pearl Raymond, a professional magician, he launched into writing novels in a serious way. Later in life, Gibson lectured on magic and earned two awards from the Academy of Magical Arts.

He was the first (and most prolific) person to write "The Shadow" novels under the name "Maxwell Grant", but he was not the only one. "Maxwell Grant", although Gibson's idea, became a property of magazine publisher Street & Smith, which hired other writers to pen "The Shadow" pulps using the name, among them Theodore A. Tinsley (one of whose stories, "Foxhound", became the basis for the movie International Crime (1938)) and Bruce Elliot.

Created two popular characters: The Shadow, aka Lamont Cranston, aka Kent Allard, who heads an organization devoted to fighting crime and about whom Gibson wrote 283 novelettes; and Norgil, aka Loring, a stage magician.

Is compared with 'John Dickson Carr' for bringing to the mystery novel a sense of illusion and misdirection.

Wrote the stories about "The Shadow" under the name of Maxwell Grant, derived from the names of two magic dealers whom he knew.