Marriott Crittenden, (1867-1932), was an American author, a prolific contributor to magazines during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The Isle of Dead Ships (January-April 1909 The Scrap Book; 1909; The Isle of Lost Ships 1930), twice filmed as The Isle of Lost Ships (1923 and 1929), focuses on a well-organized Lost Race occupying a network of ancient ships at the heart of the Sargasso Sea; the plot of the tale, involving a vaguely modernistic submarine, is digressively melodramatic. The Water Devil (July 1912 Blue Book; 1924) speculates on the possibility that Dinosaurs have survived in the swamps of Florida.