Groff Conklin

Groff Conklin (September 6, 1904 - 1968) was a noted science fiction anthologist, born Edward Groff Conklin in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

Related Topics:
September 6 - 1904 - 1968 - Science fiction - Glen Ridge - New Jersey

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From 1946 onward, Groff Conklin's name on a science fiction anthology was a guarantee of quality. Among his 41 anthologies were A Treasury of Science Fiction (1948), and 1965's 13 Above the Night. He and his wife, the former Lucy Tempkin, collaborated on The Supernatural Reader in 1953, a year before her death. They had married October 1st, 1937. Four years after Lucy's death, Conklin married Florence Wohlken.

Related Topics:
1946 - 1948 - 1965 - 1953 - October - 1937

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Prior to his first science fiction anthology (The Best of Science Fiction, 1946), Conklin was involved with a number of other publishing ventures. In 1930 at the age of 26, while still in college and employed as assistant manager at a Doubleday Bookstore in New York, he arranged for the publication of a hardcover edition of a story that originally ran in the November 1913 issue of The Smart Set Magazine written by Irish writer George Moore titled "A Flood," in a limited edition of 185 signed copies. Four years later, in 1934, Conklin and Burton Rascoe published The Smart Set Anthology (later reissued as The Bachelor's Companion in 1944) the first collection of stories from that important literary magazine.

Related Topics:
1946 - 1930 - 1913 - 1934 - 1944

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Conklin's interest in short fiction continued with the 1936 publication of The New Republic Anthology: 1915-1935, edited with Bruce Bliven. In the next decade, he would write poetry, numerous articles, and books about subways, rental libraries, and home construction.

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Conklin wrote a book review column, "Galaxy's Five-Star Shelf", for Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, from its premiere issue in October 1950 until October, 1955. During this period, he also edited Grosset & Dunlap's Science Fiction Classics series, which he conceived as an inexpensive alternative to hard-to-find small-press editions of such titles as Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon and Asimov's I, Robot.

Related Topics:
Galaxy Science Fiction - 1950 - 1955 - Heinlein - Asimov

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Educated at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Columbia, Conklin drifted restlessly through a series of jobs in the 1930s and 1940s (working for several government agencies during WWII) before finding his niche as an editor. His book, The Weather-Conditioned House, published in 1958, is not science fiction but a practical discussion of the methods of weather-conditioning a house. The book was authoritative enough that it was reissued, with an update, in 1982.

Related Topics:
1930s - 1940s - WWII

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