Manly Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903 – April 5, 1986) was an American writer. He is best known for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains and for drawing on the native folklore of that region, but he wrote in a wide variety of genres including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction and non-fiction. In the later 1920s, during the silent film era, Wellman wrote movie reviews for the Wichita Beacon. He also contributed to the writing of the comic book The Spirit while the franchise's creator, Will Eisner, was serving in the US military during World War II. Three of Wellman's most famous reappearing protagonists are Silver John, aka John the Balladeer, the wandering backwoods minstrel with a silver-stringed guitar; the elderly 'occult detective' Judge Pursuivant; and the playboy-adventurer John Thunstone. Wellman was born in Angola. He was of partial Native American ancestry. [1] After graduating from Wichita Municipal University (now Wichita State University) in Kansas, he went on to receive a bachelor of laws degree from Columbia University. Wellman was a long-time resident of North Carolina. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award. The Silver John stories were the inspiration for "Who Fears the Devil", a 1994 recording by Joe Bethancourt that featured both traditional Appalachian folk songs that Silver John would have known, and Wellman's original lyrics that were in many of the Silver John stories, set to the traditional melodies that Wellman used as models. Much of the following information is taken from Mark Cannon's bibliography of Wellman. Film based on the character of Silver John. Two segments of the film were based on the stories O Ugly Bird and The Desrick on Yandro.