Campbell, John W., Jr. 1910-1971

CAMPBELL, JOHN W., JR. 1910-1971

Science-fiction writer and magazine editor

Influential Editor

The term golden age is used with great frequency to refer to popular culture of the 1930s and 1940s, whether referring to radio, comic books, or science fiction. Rarely, however, can such a golden age be as closely identified with the work of one person as the science-fiction golden age can with John W. Campbell, Jr. During the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s he was the most influential editor in the field, discovering impressive new talents and pushing the genre to a level more sophisticated than that of most previous American science fiction, which relied heavily on adventure formulas and gadgetry.

From Writer to Editor

Campbell began writing science fiction while in his teens and published his first stories before completing his studies in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University. He built a name for himself as a writer during the 1930s, at first with space opera, then under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart, with moody, atmospheric stones such as "Twilight" (1934) and "Who Goes There?" (1938). In the second half of the decade he became increasingly associated with Astounding Science-Fiction, edited by F. Orlin Tremaine. In 1937 he became its next editor, a position he retained until his death.

New Writers, New Ideas

Campbell wrote little fiction after assuming the editorship of Astounding Science-Fiction, devoting his energies instead to making his the best science-fiction magazine in the United States. He succeeded, bringing his knowledge of good writing as an author to bear on the writings of others. He was supportive of new writers, offering them extremely detailed feedback on their work and even giving them ideas of his own to improve their stories. Within two years he had discovered a stable of writers who have since been recognized as major figures in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, and A. E. Van Vogt. He also attracted more-established writers into his fold, among them L. Sprague de Camp, L. Ron Hubbard, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Clifford D. Simak, and Jack Williamson. In the pages of Astounding Science-Fiction Campbell published many science-fiction classics by these authors and others. Though it published several fantasy classics, he was less successful with the fantasy magazine Unknown, which he began in 1939 and ended four years later.

Future Realism

Campbell, like his counterparts, stressed good storytelling, but he also strove for realism—psychological and sociological as well as scientific—within the conventions of the genre. His goal, he stated, was to publish stories about the future that would seem like journalism to a reader from that future. Sometimes this resulted in writers predicting things before they came to pass. Astounding Science-Fiction was publishing stories about moon landings and atomic-plant meltdowns long before such events became reality, and one story—Cleve Cartmill's "Deadline" (1944)—brought Campbell a visit from U.S. intelligence agents demanding to know how the magazine had acquired the "secret" of how to build an atomic bomb, which had been published as part of the story, from the Manhattan Project.

After the Golden Age

Campbell remained an important figure in science fiction until his death, but the influence he exercised in the 1940s waned for various reasons after the decade had passed. First, the dominance of Astounding Science-Fiction was effectively challenged in the 1950s by new magazines such as the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (founded 1949) and Galaxy (founded 1950)—both of which were as innovative in publishing new writers and ideas as Campbell had been more than a decade earlier. In contrast Campbell became more conservative, both artistically and politically, and some of the new ideas he entertained—most notably Hubbard's new "science" of dianetics, first explained in an article in the May 1950 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction —earned him more ridicule than respect. In addition, he was losing authors to the changing science-fiction market: writers such as Heinlein and Asimov realized they could reach more people and make more money by writing for mainstream magazines with wider circulations and by fulfilling the new demand for science-fiction books (most American science fiction before World War II had been published in magazines). Nevertheless, Astounding Science Fiction (renamed Analog Science Fact —Science Fiction in 1960) continued to remain one of the most popular magazines in the field, and Campbell was widely mourned when he died in 1971.

Sources:

Brian W. Aldiss and David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (New York: Atheneum, 1986);

Thomas D. Clareson, Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Formative Period (1926-1970) (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990).