Helen O'Loy
short story by Lester del Rey
"Helen O'Loy" is a science fiction short story by American writer Lester del Rey (1915–1993), originally published in 1938 in Astounding Science Fiction.
It was subsequently published many times in various collections or anthologies. The latest publication was in 2021, in the anthology We, Robots.
Plot summary
Two young men, a mechanic, Dave, and a medical student, Phil, collaborate on modifying a household robot, originally meant only to cook and clean. They are more successful than they intended; despite the robot's household programming, it develops emotions. The robot, named "Helen O'Loy" (a play on Helen of Troy and "alloy"), falls in love with Dave. Dave initially avoids her and rejects her advances, but after some time he marries her and they live together on his farm.
Over the years Phil assists her in artificially aging her features to match the changes that occur in her human husband. When Dave inevitably dies, she sends a letter to Phil saying that she intends to drink a powerful acid which will destroy her internal metallic structure and will appear to be suicide by poisoning. She asks that Phil bury her remains with her husband.
The public source identifies “Helen O'Loy” as short story by Lester del Rey. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Helen, O'Loy and short.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5702922. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1993, 1938 and 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Helen O'Loy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.