S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: BLISH, James Benjamin
Aged: 54
Born: May 23, 1921
Where: East Orange, New Jersey
Died: July 29, 1975
Where: Henley-on-Thames, ENGLAND
Interred: St. Cross Ch. Cem., Oxford, ENGLAND
Married: Virginia Kidd
When: May 23, 1947 (div Feb 20, 1964)
Married 2: Judith Ann Lawrence
When: Sept 11, 1964
Awarded: 1959 Hugo for Best Novel, A Case Of Conscience
James Blish
"The arts, in the last analysis, all emerge from the individual, and how much the
social structure in which he finds himself influences his work is his own choice."
Brilliant writer who received a BA in microbiology at Rutgers in 1942. WWII got in the way and Blish was drafted immediately after graduation and served until 1944 as a medical technician. After the war, Blish resumed his studies at Columbia for two years and during this period joined the Futurians. Virginia Kidd, Blish's first wife and literary agent, was also a member.
After schooling, Blish entered the literary field with several agency and trade related jobs. Blish maintained a day job, writing in his spare time, always thinking of himself as a SF writer. By 1967, he had written 27 books, outstanding among them was A Case of Conscience and the Cities in Flight series, and 175 pieces of various kinds. An early short story stood out, 1952's "Surface Tension," about life in the microcosm of a water world.
Blish moved to England in 1968. In a 1973 interview with Brian Aldiss, Blish explained why: "I came here because I loved England on my first few acquaintances with it, and Judy did too. I was actually headed for Italy when I stopped off here, and I felt no reason to go any further. I am not an exile, political or otherwise, from the U.S.A.; I am here because I like England better in general than I do the States. It has benefited me because it has made it financially possible for me to live on my income from writing, which I could not do, under the terms I demand, in the U.S.A." In the Preface of Star Trek 11, Blish signed his address as: Treetops, Woodlands Road, Harpsden (Henley), Oxon., U.K.
In his final years Blish became a major contributor to the Star Trek saga, both by re-writing numerous scripts into anthologies, and contributing his own original stories and screenplays including Spock Must Die!.
Other interests were cats, concert music, amateur theatricals, and private flying. Blish's papers and manuscript s have been reposited at Oxford University's Bodleian Library.
"Grail-hunting is essentially the loneliest of hobbies."
PEN NAMES: William Atheling, Jr.; Marcus Lyons; Arthur Merlyn; Luke Torley; Donald Laverty; and John MacDougal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine (minus Star Trek data) here and the Star Trek adaptations
BIOGRAPHY: World Authors, 1950-1970; Science Fiction Writers, Scribners 1982; and The Life and Work of James Blish, David Ketterer, Kent State UP, 1987.
OBITUARY: New York Times, July 31, 1975
