S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: COGSWELL, Theodore Rose
Aged: 68
Born: March 10, 1918
Where: Coatesville, Pennsylvania
Died: February 1987
Where: Scranton, PA
Cremated: Ashes supposed to go to Arlington National Cem.)
Married: Marjorie Mills
When: 1948 (div 1963)
Married 2: Coralie Norris
When: 1964
Married 3: George Rae Marsh
When: 1972
Awarded: Inducted into The First Fandom Hall of Fame in Sept 2000.
Theodore R. Cogswell
"The only meaningful freedom, is the freedom to dissent."
Served in the medical corp for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and then the US Army Air Corp during WW2, where he flew cargo planes along the Burma Road, and was discharged with the rank of Captain.
Cogswell's forte was the short story. His active interests in life and reality didn't allow him the power of long term self delusion, required in most novelists. And Ted had nothing to escape as he enjoyed life to the max. Cogswell's most noted work was the novella "The Spectre General," but even though he was often anthologized, time passed fame to the writers of the novel and Ted's short work has been largely forgotten. Ted's one novel effort was co-authored with Charles Spano, and even that was historical, being the first original Star Trek novel Spock:Messiah!
Professor Cogswell accomplished more in the SF field as a pro fanzine editor than he did as a writer, which is not meant to undermine the value of his writing. In the very late 1950s Ted created PITFCS (see below), a letterzine devoted to, and for the exclusive use of, SF&F writers. The first issue was some ridiculous number, #128 I believe. It was a most interesting zine containing great to brilliant repartee. And it created the union-body-politic that would become the SFWA. The letters of Eric Frank Russell still stand out in my mind. And as Randy Garrett said, with his typical wit, "I knew Ted Cogswell when he didn't have a pit to fcs in."
Ted was working on having PITFCS published before he died with the project unfinished. However, it was published in 1992 by Advent as PITFCS: The Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty First Century Studies, ISBN 0-911682-30-9, 350,000 words ... and is an outstanding work.
"Significance lies in the creation, not in the created. What happens
to the byproduct of the creative impulse - whether people like it or not -
whether it sells or not - whether the writer is delighted or disgusted with
what he has brought forth - these are only important in a different, secondary
way. The writer's problem is to keep the secondary from becoming primary."
(ED NOTE: a special thanks to Charles Spano for caring enough to provide critical data.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
OBITUARY:
WWII DATA: SN 18070484, Theodore R. Cogswell, res Summit County, Ohio. Enlisted Feb 24, 1942. Pvt. Born 1918 in Pennsylvania. White. 2 years of college.
