Anthony Boucher
Encyclopedia
Anthony Boucher was an American
science fiction
editor
and author
of mystery novels and short stories
. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle
. In addition to 'Anthony Boucher', White also employed the pseudonym 'H. H. Holmes', which was the name of a late 19th-Century American serial killer.
In a poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel Nine Times Nine was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery
of all time.
, California
, and went to college at the University of Southern California
. He later received a Masters Degree from the University of California, Berkeley
.
. He was the first English translator of Jorge Luis Borges
, translating "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan
" for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
. He helped found the Mystery Writers of America
in 1946 and, in the same year, was one of the first winners of the MWA's Edgar Award
for his mystery reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle
. He was founding editor (with J. Francis McComas
) of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
from 1949 to 1958, and was seminal in attempting to make literary quality an important aspect of science fiction. He won the Hugo Award
for Best Professional Magazine
in 1957 and 1958. Boucher also edited the long-running Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction anthology series, 1952-1959.
Boucher wrote short stories for many of the most distinguished American fiction magazines, including
Adventure
, Astounding
, Black Mask,
Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Galaxy Science Fiction
, The Master Detective, Unknown Worlds
and Weird Tales
.
His short story "The Quest for Saint Aquin
" was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories of all time. As such, it was published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964
.
Boucher was the friend and mentor of science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick
and others. His 1942 novel Rocket to the Morgue
, in addition to being a classic locked room mystery
, is also something of a roman à clef
about the Southern California
science fiction culture
of the time, featuring thinly-veiled versions of personalities such as Robert A. Heinlein
, L. Ron Hubbard
and rocket scientist
/occultist/fan Jack Parsons.
With respect to his scripting of the Sherlock Holmes radio dramas, Nigel Bruce
, who played Dr. Watson, said that Boucher "had a sound knowledge of Conan Doyle and a great affection for the two characters of Holmes and Watson."
Anthony Boucher died of lung cancer
on April 29, 1968 at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland.
The annual Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention
was named in his honor.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
editor
Literary editor
A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews. A literary editor may also help with editing books themselves, by providing services such as proof reading, copy-editing, and literary...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of mystery novels and short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. In addition to 'Anthony Boucher', White also employed the pseudonym 'H. H. Holmes', which was the name of a late 19th-Century American serial killer.
In a poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel Nine Times Nine was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
of all time.
Background
White was born in OaklandOakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and went to college at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. He later received a Masters Degree from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
Fiction writing and editing
Boucher (as he was more commonly known) was admired for his mystery writing but was most noted for his editing, his science fiction anthologies, and his mystery reviews for many years in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. He was the first English translator of Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
, translating "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan
The Garden of Forking Paths
"The Garden of Forking Paths" is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan , which was republished in its entirety in Ficciones in 1944...
" for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
. He helped found the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
in 1946 and, in the same year, was one of the first winners of the MWA's Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
for his mystery reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. He was founding editor (with J. Francis McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....
) of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
from 1949 to 1958, and was seminal in attempting to make literary quality an important aspect of science fiction. He won the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for Best Professional Magazine
Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1957 and 1958. Boucher also edited the long-running Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction anthology series, 1952-1959.
Boucher wrote short stories for many of the most distinguished American fiction magazines, including
Adventure
Adventure (magazine)
Adventure magazine was first published in November 1910 as a monthly pulp magazine. Adventure went on become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed of all the American pulp magazines...
, Astounding
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, Black Mask,
Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
, The Master Detective, Unknown Worlds
Unknown (magazine)
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...
and Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
.
His short story "The Quest for Saint Aquin
The Quest for Saint Aquin
The Quest for Saint Aquin is a science fiction short story by Anthony Boucher originally published in 1951 in New Tales of Space and Time. The Quest for Saint Aquin was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one the best science fiction short stories of all...
" was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories of all time. As such, it was published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 is a 1970 anthology of science fiction short stories, edited by Robert Silverberg. It is generally considered one of the best, if not the best, of the many science fiction anthologies...
.
Boucher was the friend and mentor of science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
and others. His 1942 novel Rocket to the Morgue
Rocket to the Morgue
Rocket to the Morgue is a 1942 American locked room mystery novel by Anthony Boucher .- Plotline :Now-dead author Fowler Foulkes and his creation Dr...
, in addition to being a classic locked room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
, is also something of a roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
about the Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
science fiction culture
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
of the time, featuring thinly-veiled versions of personalities such as Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
, L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
and rocket scientist
Aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...
/occultist/fan Jack Parsons.
Radio
Boucher also scripted for radio and was involved in many other activities, as described by William F. Nolan in his essay, "Who Was Anthony Boucher?":- The 1940s proved to be a very busy and productive decade for Boucher. In 1945 he launched into a spectacular three-year radio career, plotting more than 100 episodes for The Adventures of Ellery Queen, while also providing plots for the bulk of the Sherlock Holmes radio dramas. By the summer of 1946 he had created his own mystery series for the airwaves, The Casebook of Gregory Hood. ("I was turning out three scripts each week for as many shows," he stated. "It was a mix of hard work and great fun.")
- Tony left dramatic radio in 1948, "mainly because I was putting in a lot of hours working with J. Francis McComas in creating what soon became The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. We got it off the ground in 1949 and saw it take hold solidly by 1950. This was a major creative challenge and although I was involved in a lot of other projects, I stayed with F&SF into 1958."
- Indeed, throughout his years with the magazine, Boucher was certainly involved in "a lot of other projects." Among them:
-
- • Supplying the SF and crime markets with new fiction.
- • Teaching an informal writing class from his home in Berkeley.
- • Continuing his Sunday mystery columns for the New York Times Book Review.
- • Functioning as chief critic for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
- • Reviewing SF and fantasy (as H. H. Holmes) for the New York Herald Tribune.
- • Editing True Crime Detective.
- • Supervising the Mercury Mystery Line and (later) the Dell Great Mystery Library.
- • Hosting Golden Voices, his series of historical opera recordings for Pacifica Radio.
- • Serving (in 1951) as president of Mystery Writers of America.
- In addition to all of this, Tony was a devoted poker player, a political activist, a rabid sport fan (football, basketball, track, gymnastics and rugby), an active "Sherlockian" in the Baker Street Irregulars and a spirited chef.
With respect to his scripting of the Sherlock Holmes radio dramas, Nigel Bruce
Nigel Bruce
William Nigel Ernle Bruce , best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Doctor Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
, who played Dr. Watson, said that Boucher "had a sound knowledge of Conan Doyle and a great affection for the two characters of Holmes and Watson."
Anthony Boucher died of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
on April 29, 1968 at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland.
The annual Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention
Bouchercon
Bouchercon, the Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention, is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher....
was named in his honor.
Mystery novels
- The Case of the Seven of Calvary (1937)
- The Case of the Crumpled Knave (1939)
- The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars (1940)
- Nine Times Nine (as H. H. Holmes) (1940)
- The Case of the Solid Key (1941)
- Rocket to the MorgueRocket to the MorgueRocket to the Morgue is a 1942 American locked room mystery novel by Anthony Boucher .- Plotline :Now-dead author Fowler Foulkes and his creation Dr...
(as H. H. Holmes) (1942) - The Case of the Seven Sneezes (1942)
Collections
- Far and Away; Eleven Fantasy and SF Stories (1955) (fantasy and science fiction)
- The Compleat Werewolf and Other Stories of Fantasy and SF (1969) (fantasy and science fiction)
- Exeunt Murderers (1983) (mysteries)
- The Compleat Boucher (1999) (fantasy and science fiction)
- The Casebook of Gregory Hood, Radio Plays by Anthony Boucher and Denis Green, edited by Joe R. Christopher (2009) (scripts from a radio program)
Sources
- New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors
- Clute and Nicholls, 1993, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, St. Martins. ISBN 0-312-13486-X
External links
- A. Boucher page
- On Anthony Boucher, David Langford
- Photo
- Review, The Compleat Boucher
- Downloadable episodes of the radio program The Casebook of Gregory Hood in the public domain
- Downloadable episodes of the radio program Sherlock Holmes (starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce) in the public domain
- Anthopology 101: Boucher's A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, by Bud WebsterBud WebsterClarence Howard "Bud" Webster is a science fiction and fantasy writer who is also known for his essays on both the history of science fiction and sf/fantasy anthologies as well. He is perhaps best known for the Bubba Pritchert series, which have won two Analytical Laboratory readers' awards from...
at Galactic Central
