Elijah Baley is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

's Robot series

Isaac Asimov's Robot Series

Isaac Asimov's Robot Series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.- Short stories :Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration...

. He is the main character of the novels The Caves of Steel

The Caves of Steel

The Caves of Steel is a novel by Isaac Asimov. It is essentially a detective story, and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science fiction is a flavor that can be applied to any literary genre, rather than a limited genre itself. Specifically, in the book Asimov's Mysteries, he states that...

, The Naked Sun

The Naked Sun

The Naked Sun is an English language science fiction novel, the second in Isaac Asimov's Robot series.-Plot introduction:Like its famous predecessor, The Caves of Steel, it is a whodunit story, in addition to being science fiction...

and The Robots of Dawn

The Robots of Dawn

The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1984.- Plot summary :...

, and of the short story "Mirror Image". He is seen in flashback

Flashback (narrative)

Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

s several times and talked about frequently in Robots and Empire

Robots and Empire

Robots and Empire is science fiction novel written by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, consisting of many short stories and novels....

, which is set roughly 200 years after his death. Besides Asimov's works he appears in the Foundation's Friends

Foundation's Friends

Foundation's Friends, Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov is a 1989 festschrift honoring science fiction author Isaac Asimov, in the form of an anthology of short stories set in Asimov's universes, particularly the Robot/Empire/Foundation universe. The anthology was edited by Martin H...

story "Strip-Runner", by Pamela Sargent and, "Isaac Asimov's 'The Caves Of Steel'" poem by Randall Garrett

Biography

He is a plainclothesman, a homicide detective in the New York City Police Department

New York City Police Department

The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...

 3,000 years in the future. He is a doleful character with a quick temper. Like Sherlock Holmes, he is a pipe-smoker – a habit he fights against in The Robots of Dawn. He has a strong sense of duty and loyalty and is very protective of his family and his status. His wife, Jezebel Baley, prefers to be called Jessie. Their son, Bentley, became a leader in the second wave of interplanetary space exploration

Settler (Asimov)

In the vague period between Isaac Asimov's near-future robot stories and his Robot novels, emigrants from Earth establish colonies on fifty worlds, the first being Aurora, the last Solaria, and the Hall of the Worlds located on Melpomenia, the nineteenth...

.

Baley, like most earth-born human beings of his century, is strongly agoraphobic, as The Caves of Steel reveals that almost all natives of Earth of Baley's time spend all of their time from birth to death in immense domed cities (caves of steel) and rarely, if ever, travel to the outside surface. Baley's agoraphobia is an important personality characteristic and plot point in several of the novels in which he appears. This somewhat mirrors Asimov's own personality, as he was a well known claustrophile (a person who prefers to be in enclosed spaces).

Asimov's novels are typically devoid of profanity. Consequently, Baley's favourite expletive

Expletive attributive

Expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning "to fill", via expletivus, "filling out". It was introduced into English in the seventeenth century to refer to various kinds of padding—the padding out of a book with peripheral material, the addition of syllables to a line of poetry for...

 is "Jehoshaphat

Jehoshaphat

Jehoshaphat was the fourth king of the The Kingdom of Judah, and successor of his father Asa. His children included Jehoram, who succeeded him as king...

!" which he says in times of great stress or excitement.

In The Caves of Steel, he is called upon to help solve the murder of a Spacer

Spacer (Asimov)

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation/Empire/Robot series, the Spacers were the first humans to emigrate to space. About a millennium thereafter, they severed political ties with Earth, and embraced low population growth and extreme longevity as a means for a high standard of living, in combination with...

. The Spacers assign him a robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw

R. Daneel Olivaw

R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. The "R" initial in his name stands for "robot," a naming convention in Asimov's future society...

, who becomes his lifelong friend. He meets up with R. Daneel again in The Naked Sun, where again he is asked to investigate the murder of a Spacer

Spacer (Asimov)

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation/Empire/Robot series, the Spacers were the first humans to emigrate to space. About a millennium thereafter, they severed political ties with Earth, and embraced low population growth and extreme longevity as a means for a high standard of living, in combination with...

, this time on the planet Solaria

Solaria

Solaria was a fictional human-inhabited planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot series.It was the last of fifty Spacer worlds colonized by humans in a first wave of interstellar settlement. Occupied from approximately 4270 AD by inhabitants of the neighboring world Nexon originally for summer...

, making him the first Earthman to leave Earth since the first wave of colonization. Later, in the Robots of Dawn, he recognizes R. Giskard's telepathic abilities long before anyone else does. Giskard modifies Baley's mind to prevent him from being able to tell anyone.

Some details of Baley's life lack continuity throughout the Robot novels. In The Caves of Steel, for example, it is noted that Baley's mother died shortly after his father was declassified (lost his civil classification and therefore all social and economic status), and that Elijah did not remember her. However, in The Robots of Dawn, Baley recalls his mother cajoling him to eat her chicken soup and telling him that even the Spacers did not have anything as good. In The Caves of Steel, Baley is also reported to have a sister, but she is never referred to again. In the same way, Baley's intense shame at his father's declassification and the resulting deprivations of his childhood is not referred to in succeeding novels, somewhat diluting his motivation to succeed and preserve (or improve) his own civil classification and the privileges it entails.

In later stories, it is revealed that Elijah becomes a legendary hero for millennia. References to him can be found in Prelude to Foundation

Prelude to Foundation

Prelude to Foundation is a Locus Award nominated 1988 novel written by Isaac Asimov. It is one of two prequels to the Foundation Series. For the first time, Asimov chronicles the fictional life of Hari Seldon, the man who invented psychohistory and the intellectual hero of the series.-Plot...

and Foundation and Earth

Foundation and Earth

Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...

.

Appearances in other media

In the 1964 British television adaptation of The Caves of Steel (an episode of the BBC2 series Story Parade), Baley was played by Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

. The script was adapted by Terry Nation

Terry Nation

Terry Nation was a Welsh screenwriter and novelist.He is probably best known for creating the villainous Daleks in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who...

.

In the 1969 British television adaptation of The Naked Sun (an episode of the BBC2 series Out of the Unknown), Baley was played by Paul Maxwell

Paul Maxwell

Paul Maxwell was a Canadian actor who worked mostly in British television and films, in which he was usually cast as an American...

.

In the 1988 Kodak VCR game Isaac Asimov's Robots, Baley was played by Steven Rowe.

In the 1989 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Caves of Steel, Baley was played by Ed Bishop

Ed Bishop

Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...

.