Husbands & Wives-Part Three

John Wood Campbell, Jr., was born on June 8, 1910, in Newark, New Jersey. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from Duke University in 1934. As a student living in the Boston area, he met young Doña Stebbins. They were married in 1931, not long after she graduated from high school. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the exact date or place.

Doña Louise Stuart Stebbins was born on November 27, 1913, in Ohio, possibly in Akron. Her mother, Mary V. Stebbins, was a Canadian-American and--in 1920 at least--a singer in a theater in Boston. Her mother was Martha Stuart, also born in Canada. So by a combination of a version of his wife's given name and her mother's maiden name, Campbell had his nom de plume, Don A. Stuart.

Doña Stuart, or Doña Campbell, was artistic, a singer, a cook, and a hostess in the Campbell home. Campbell called her "a kindly, gentle, and sweet person." (1) She was outgoing where her husband was not. According to Alec Nevala-Lee, she "changed his writing, although it took years for the full implications to emerge." She retyped his stories and corrected his grammar and spelling. "She became his first reader [. . .], and he submitted ideas and openings for her approval." According to L. Ron Hubbard, she was his "sounding board." (2)

In October 1937, Campbell was elevated to the editorship of Astounding Stories, published by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Within a year or two, he had set off what is now called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. He did this by gathering a stable of young writers, including A.E. van Vogt, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Lester del Rey. We remember their names and read their stories even today. Doña, the woman behind the editor, is not so well known.

Campbell and Doña were especially close to Robert A. Heinlein and his wife, Leslyn MacDonald Heinlein. The Campbells' older daughter, Philinda Duane Campbell, called "Peedee" or "Peeds," was born on Leslyn's thirty-sixth birthday, August 29, 1940. Leslyn Heinlein became the namesake of the Campbells' younger daughter, Leslyn Stuart Campbell, born in 1945. The Heinleins were her godparents.

In 1949, Campbell got himself wrapped up in Dianetics. His partner in that work was of course L. Ron Hubbard. That was the end of the line for Doña Campbell, especially, I think, after her husband decided that he should audit their two daughters. She was resistant to Hubbard and Campbell's new brainchild. She warned the Heinleins that Dianetics "would be dangerous 'in the hands of a couple of crackpot world-savers.'" (3) Her insight at that very early date seems to have been rare among science fiction writers. To his credit, Lester del Rey also saw through this newest of pseudosciences.

As people used to say, Doña fled into the arms of another man. He was science fiction author George Oliver Smith. Born on April 9, 1911, in Chicago, Smith was one of Campbell's stable of writers at Astounding from 1942 to 1948. He and Doña were married in 1950. Again, unfortunately, I haven't found the exact date, although the place may have been in Philadelphia. Smith had been married before, too. His first wife was Helen Kunzler (1913-1996). They were married from 1936 to 1948. Smith did not return to the pages of Astounding until 1959. He also had one story in Analog.

John W. Campbell rebounded soon enough after his wife left him, for on June 15, 1951--exactly a week after his forty-first birthday--he married Margaret Winter Kearney. She had been married before. Her marriage to Everett W. Kearney had ended by divorce just two months before, on April 19, 1951, in Gogebic County, Michigan. Nicknamed Peg, she was the sister of Dr. Joseph A. Winter, who had also lent a hand in the development of Dianetics. Peg Campbell was involved in all of that business, too. By coincidence, Dr. Winter died on John W. Campbell's forty-fifth birthday, June 8, 1955.

Campbell remained editor of Astounding Science Fiction, later Analog, until his death, which happened at his home in New Jersey on July 11, 1971. It was Peg Campbell who found him in his chair. She wrote "Postscriptum" in The Best of John W. Campbell, published in 1976.

Doña Louise Stuart Stebbins Campbell White died in May 1974 in Rumson, New Jersey, this according to an undocumented source on the Internet. Margaret "Peg" Winter Kearney Campbell died on August 17, 1979, in Waterville, Maine. George O. Smith wrote a remembrance of the second wife of his second wife's ex-husband. Entitled "In Memoriam: Margaret Winter Campbell," it was published in the February 1980 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. He died a little more than a year later, on May 27, 1981, in Rumson, New Jersey. He was just seventy years old and the last of the main players in these three connected marriages--these three partnerships from which so much science fiction emerged.

Next: The Heinleins

Notes
(1) From a letter to Frank Kelly Freas, June 10, 1955, in The John W. Campbell Letters, Volume 1 (AC Projects, Inc., 1985), p. 286.
(2) These three quotes are from Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee, p. 60, a book that I have relied on and quoted from more than once in this series. I fully acknowledge Mr. Nevala-Lee's great job of research, analysis, synthesis, and writing, and I urge you to read his book.
(3) From Nevala-Lee, p. 273.

Cover art by Alex Schomburg. Note the byline of James Gunn.

Thanks to Carrington Dixon for corrections.
Revised November 15, 2022.
Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Before the Golden Age-Emil Petaja

Emil Petaja
Author, Poet, Science Fiction Fan, Collector, Publisher, Photographer
Born April 12, 1915, Milltown, Missoula County, Montana
Died August 17, 2000, San Francisco, California

Emil Petaja's life changed when he first read Weird Tales. Has any other teller of weird tales made such a claim? That fateful encounter came in 1931 when the author-to-be was in his mid-teens, a golden age for fantasy fans. He wrote his first published letter in a science fiction magazine in 1933, his first poem ("Witch's Bercuse" in Marvel Tales) in 1935, and his first story ("The Mist" in Phantasmagoria) in 1937. Because of his early activity in the field, Petaja earned his rightful place in First Fandom.

In this blog I have looked at lesser-known authors. My biographies of well-known authors have been brief. But as I have worked on the current series of authors first published before the Golden Age of Science Fiction, I have found that even some prominent authors have gotten short shrift, at least on the Internet. Arthur Leo Zagat and Nathan Schachner, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, and P. Schuyler Miller are examples. You will find lists of their published works on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, critical and historical information in the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, and some very limited biographical information on Wikipedia, but too often, the whole picture of a writer's life is missing. Emil Petaja is an exception. There is a lengthy biography of Petaja on Wikipedia. I won't rehash what the authors of that biography have written. Instead I'll just highlight a few facts.

Emil Theodore Petaja was born of Finnish parents in Milltown, Montana, nearly one hundred years ago. (The surname Petaja is Finnish for "pine"--it's fitting that a child with that name should come into the world in a place full of pine and in a town called Milltown.) Petaja became a fan and a collector of science fiction and fantasy as a teenager. In the 1930s, he corresponded with other genre writers, including H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Petaja moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and befriended Forrest J Ackerman, Ray Bradbury, Henry Kuttner, and Hannes Bok, among others. For a time he and Bok were roommates. After Bok's death, Petaja published memorial works for his friend under the Bokanalia Foundation, which he founded in 1967. Like Ackerman, Petaja was an inveterate collector of memorabilia, including movie memorabilia.

Petaja wrote science fiction, fantasy, horror, weird fiction, and detective stories. Much of his work was based on Finnish mythology and folklore. Weird Tales published eight of his stories and two of his poems. After a long and distinguished career during which he seems to have been in contact with every well-known person in his field, Emil Petaja died on August 17, 2000, in San Francisco. Ackerman, Bradbury, and--just this month--Ray Harryhausen have since passed away. Few if any of the old Los Angeles science fiction fans are left.

Emil Petaja's Stories & Poems in Weird Tales

"Lost Dream" (poem, Jan. 1938)
"The Warrior" (poem, Jan. 1939)
"Monsieur Bluebeard" (Sept. 1944)

"The Music-Box from Hell" (May 1945)

"Votaress" (Sept. 1945)

"The Jonah" (Mar. 1946)

"Skydrift" (Nov. 1949)

"The Hungry Ghost" (Mar. 1950)

"The Insistent Ghost" (Sept. 1950)

"Live Evil" (July 1952)

Emil Petaja's Letters to "The Eyrie"

June 1932 

Sept. 1934 

Aug. 1935 

Apr. 1938 

Mar. 1946 

Some paperback covers of novels by Emil Petaja: The Caves of Mars (1965), one side of an Ace Double with cover art by Alex Schomburg. I have read this book. My best advice is just to look at the cover.

Alpha Yes, Terra No! (1965) with cover art by Ed Valigursky.

The Time Twister (1968) with cover art by Jack Gaughan.

The Star Mill (1966). Again, Gaughan was the artist.

The Path Beyond the Stars (1969), a third cover by Jack Gaughan.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Before the Golden Age-Lloyd Arthur Eshbach

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach
Science Fiction Fan, Author, Publisher, Salesman, Pastor
Born June 20, 1910, Palm, Pennsylvania
Died October 29, 2003, Myerstown, Pennsylvania

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach was born on June 20, 1910, in Palm, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Reading. He started reading science fiction at the golden age of fifteen and read the first issue of Amazing Stories, published in 1926. Eshbach sold the third science fiction story he ever wrote to Science Wonder Stories in 1929. (1) He began collecting science fiction magazines in the 1920s and wrote letters to them as early as 1930. That early fan activity qualified him for membership in First Fandom, an association formed in 1959 among those who had been active in science fiction fandom since before January 1, 1938, in other words, since before the Golden Age. The name of the organization refers to Olaf Stapledon's novel Last and First Men, another example of science fiction's claim to that British philosopher. (2)

Eshbach wrote a number of stories and poems published in science fiction magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s. His publishing career began in the early 1930s with two magazines, Marvel Tales and The Galleon. He continued in publishing after World War II with the founding of Fantasy Press in 1946. If Wikipedia's list of books published by Fantasy Press is correct, the first and last books under that imprint were by E.E. "Doc" Smith. Other authors included some of whom I have written these past few days, Arthur Leo Zagat, Jack Williamson, Murray Leinster, and Stanton A. Coblentz. Eshbach also issued Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing (1947), the first book about the writing of science fiction, written by science fiction authors. Another first attributed to Eshbach: the term speculative fiction, co-created with Robert Heinlein.

Be warned: L. Ron Hubbard is about to rear his ugly head again, this time in relationship to the author at hand. In his memoirs, Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era (1982), Lloyd Arthur Eshbach reported that Hubbard told him, "I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is," in 1949. (3) "Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science" appeared in Astounding Science Fiction and in book form the following year. Coincidentally or not, 1950 is cited as the end date of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. 

John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding, endorsed Dianetics. That endorsement could only have hurt the cause of hard science fiction. But did science fiction fans who had so recently expressed hostility towards the Shaver Mystery have anything at all to say about Dianetics? John W. Campbell, Theodore Sturgeon, and A.E. van Vogt were involved in Dianetics in varying degrees from the beginning. But did Raymond Palmer win over any well-known authors to his twin mysteries, the Shaver Mystery and the Flying Saucer Mystery? Or were they too incredulous? (4) Compare the reputations of John W. Campbell and Raymond Palmer. Which is the god and which is the goat, at least in the minds of some science fiction fans? Say what you will about Raymond Palmer, at least he knew when he was peddling nonsense.

Speaking of religion . . . after 1958, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach was a publisher of religious material, a salesman for the Moody Bible Institute, and a pastor in the Evangelical Congregational Church. That church was founded in and based in Eshbach's home state of Pennsylvania. Its members are mostly of German descent. That may explain why the German Wikipedia entry on Eshbach is longer and more informative than is the English version. Later in life, Eshbach returned to writing science fiction. His last book published within his own lifetime was The Scroll of Lucifer (1990). Lloyd Arthur Eshbach died on October 29, 2003, in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, at the age of ninety-three.

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach's Stories in Weird Tales

"Isle of the Undead" (Oct. 1936)

"The City of Dread" (Summer 1983) (5)

Notes

(1) This according to Wikipedia. However, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database doesn't seem to list a story published before 1930.

(2) Lest you think First Fandom is bound to get smaller year by year, there are other categories of membership to allow for fans from after 1938.

(3) Eshbach wasn't the only witness to statements like that coming from the inventor of Dianetics and Scientology. Theodore Sturgeon was also supposed to have been present at the birth of the idea, as were--by different accounts--Robert A. Heinlein and Harlan Ellison.

(4) Donald E. Keyhoe and Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea, aka Millen Cooke, believed in flying saucers. Millen Cooke wrote for Palmer's science fiction titles during the 1950s. Neither Keyhoe nor Cooke was a well-known science fiction author, however.
(5) Eshbach is the first author of whom I have written to be published in the 1980s revival of Weird Tales.

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach wrote one story for the original Weird Tales and it made the cover in October 1936. I can't tell whether the nude figure on J. Allen St. John's cover is a man or a woman. If it's a man, he would have been a rarity on the cover of Weird Tales if not pulp magazines in general. Either way, St. John should have worked on his draftsmanship a little harder.

Although his byline was on the cover, Eshbach's tale for Wonder Story Annual in 1952 wasn't the cover story. Alex Schomburg was the cover artist however, and that's enough for me. 

Tyrant of Time, one of Eshbach's books for his own Fantasy Press. Note the robot at the press as the logo.

The motif of the printing press returned on the cover of Eshbach's memoirs, Over My Shoulder.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Before the Golden Age-Ray Cummings

Introduction

Pulp magazines began in 1896 when The Argosy switched to what we now recognize as the pulp format: a lengthy, all-fiction magazine printed on cheap, wood-pulp paper with untrimmed edges. Over the next quarter century, the pulp market was dominated by general-interest story magazines, especially Argosy, Adventure, Blue Book, and Short Stories. These magazines published a variety of genres, including fantasy and nascent science fiction. Titles devoted to more specific genres came along during the second generation of pulp magazines. These included Western Story Magazine (1919), Black Mask (1920), and of course Weird Tales (1923), the first American magazine devoted exclusively to works of fantasy.

Hugo Gernsback published the first regular magazine of science fiction, Amazing Stories, in 1926, but the Golden Age of Science Fiction did not begin until John W. Campbell, Jr. took over the editorship of Astounding Stories in 1938. In short, any period described as "before the Golden Age" could potentially include the years 1896 to 1938.

The first group of authors I would like to write about began their careers not only before the Golden Age, but also before Amazing Stories, the first science fiction pulp magazine. They include Ray Cummings, Ralph Milne Farley, and Murray Leinster.

Ray Cummings
Technical Writer and Editor, Pulp Fiction Writer, Comic Book Writer
Born August 30, 1887, New York, New York
Died January 23, 1957, Mount Vernon, New York

Raymond King Cummings was born on August 30, 1887, on Times Square in New York City. Educated at Princeton University and on his family's orange plantation in Puerto Rico, Cummings worked as a writer and editor for Thomas Edison from 1914 to 1919. All-Story Weekly published the first story he ever sold, "The Girl in the Golden Atom" (Mar. 15, 1919). Cummings followed that with "People of the Golden Atom" (All-Story Weekly, Jan. 24-Feb. 24, 1920) and more than 600 (and perhaps as many as 750) tales in a decades-long career. The Golden Atom stories were reprinted in hardback in 1922. Since then they have been reprinted again and again in magazines, anthologies, and paperbound editions. It's fair to say that Cummings' career was built upon a miniature universe.

The online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction mentions Cummings' series of Scientific Club Stories (in the manner of the older "club story" form); his Matter, Space, and Time sequence; and his Crimes of the Year 2000 series for Detective Fiction Weekly. Cummings also worked in the planetary romance genre (pioneered by Edgar Rice Burroughs) in his stories of Tama of Mercury, and in the space opera genre with his stories of Greg Haljan. A website called Technovelgy: Where Science Meets Fiction lists Cummings' scientific inventions and innovations. Not listed is this quote:

"Time . . . is what keeps everything from happening at once,"

a quote that I believe I have heard attributed to Albert Einstein. Not bad for a pulp fiction writer.

Cummings' wife, Gabrielle Wilson, and daughter, Elizabeth or Betty Starr, were also writers. Husband and wife lived for a time in a hotel in New York City, where they wrote through the night and woke up for breakfast at noon. As Cummings' pulp fiction career began to shrink away in the 1940s, he ghosted comic book scripts for Timely Comics. Wikipedia lets us know that he adapted "The Girl in the Golden Atom" to Captain America #25 and 26 in a story entitled "Princess of the Atom." Cummings also wrote stories for Human Torch and Sub-Mariner comics.

I have never read anything by Ray Cummings, but I believe he has a reputation for being juvenile or old fashioned. Edgar Rice Burroughs can be described with the same words, yet he doesn't lack for fans. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction equivocates, but in the end is probably correct: "So there will likely never be a Cummings revival." However, his idea of a miniature universe will probably go on for as long as people read works of fantasy.

Ray Cummings' Stories in Weird Tales
"Explorers Into Infinity" (three-part serial, Apr., May, and June 1927)
"The Giant World" (three-part serial, Jan., Feb., and Mar. 1928)
"The Robot God" (July 1941)
"The Lifted Veil" (May 1947)

Ray Cummings and his Golden Atom stories made their debut in "The Girl in the Golden Atom" in All-Story Weekly for March 15, 1919. The story (Cummings' favorite among his own works) was very popular and led to many sequels and re-printings.

Here's a cover for Fantastic Novels Magazine from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, demonstrating that Cummings and his work had staying power. The title "The Girl in the Golden Atom," by the way echoes the title of the stage play Girl of the Golden West (1905). The play was adapted to film in The Girl of the Golden West, a musical released in 1938 and starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. The cover art here is by Lawrence.

Avon reprinted Cummings' story "The Princess of the Atom" in 1950. The name of the cover artist is unknown.

By the 1970s, comic book fans and probably many science fiction fans had forgotten about the Girl in the Golden Atom, but they could still read stories of a miniaturized universe in The Micronauts, a comic book series published by Marvel beginning in 1979. The cover art was by Marvel workhorses Dave Cockrum and Al Milgrom.

Even Dr. Seuss got in on the act of little worlds nestled within our own when he published Horton Hears a Who! in 1954. We would do well to remember Horton's refrain, "A person's a person, no matter how small."

Ray Cummings tried his hand at planetary romance in his stories of Tama, Princess of Mercury. Cover art by Jerome Podwil.

Tama returned in Tama of the Light Country, again with cover art by Mr. Podwil.

Here's a cover for Super Science Novels Magazine, August 1941, with cover art by Robert C. Sherry. Note the setting in the Light Country.

Ace had a field day with Ray Cummings' work during the 1960s. Note the theme of miniaturization in this cover for Beyond the Vanishing Point. The cover artist was Ed Valigursky.

Here's a more brightly colored cover for A Brand New World. The cover art is unsigned and uncredited, but is this the work of Jack Gaughan?

Another Ace cover, this one by Ed Emshwiller and for Brigands of the Moon.

If you want to see other science fiction artists pale, just put their work next to that of Alex Schomburg, as in this cover for The Exile of Time.

I would collect Ace Books from now until the end of time if there were enough covers like this one for Wandl the Invader.  Ed Valigursky was the artist.

Even as late as 1966, when the magazine Famous Science Fiction Tales of Wonder was printed, Cummings' first story, "The Girl in the Golden Atom," was read by fans of the genre. The flying saucer cover art was the work of Virgil Finlay.

We shouldn't forget that Ray Cummings contributed four stories to Weird Tales. Here is the cover for July 1941 illustrating his novelette "The Robot God." The artist was Hannes Bok. That looks like a self-portrait on the right.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley