The Wondersmith

O'Brien's earliest writings in the United States were contributed to theLantern, which was then edited by John Brougham. Subsequently hewrote for the Home Journal, the New York Times, and the AmericanWhig Review. His first important literary connection was with Harper'sMagazine, and beginning in February, 1853, with The Two Skulls, hecontributed more than sixty articles in prose and verse to that periodical.He likewise wrote for the New York Saturday Press, Putnam's Magazine,Vanity Fair, and the Atlantic Monthly. To the latter he sent TheDiamond Lens(1858) and The Wonder Smith (1859), which areunsurpassed as creations of the imagination, and are unique among shortmagazine stories. The Diamond Lens is probably his most famous shortstory, and tells the story of a scientist who invents a powerful microscopediscovers a beautiful female in a microscopic world inside a drop ofwater. The Wonder Smith is an early predecessor of robot rebellion,where toys possessed by evil spirits are transformed into livingautomatons who turns against their creators. His 1858 short story FromHand to Mouth has been referred to as"the single most striking exampleof surrealistic fiction to pre-date Alice in Wonderland (Sam Moskowitz,1971). What Was It? A Mystery (1859) is one of the earliest knownexamples of invisibility in fiction.