The Ugly Little Boy

The Ugly Little Boy is a science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg based on a short story by Isaac Asimov.

The story deals with a Homo neanderthalensis child which is brought to the future by means of time travel, and is raised as a modern human child, Timmy the Ape-Boy.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

He is taken care of by nurse Edith Fellowes, who in the course of the story begins to see him as her own child and learns to love him, eventually working against her employer Stasis, Inc., which seeks to exploit Timmy for their own purposes.

The novel expands on the short story by introducing a subplot detailing Timmy's original Neanderthal tribe, and introduces another subplot dealing with a child's advocacy group which seeks to liberate Timmy.

The original short story was first published in 1958

The novel was first published in hardback in September 1992 by publisher Doubleday Foundation ( ISBN 0385263430).