S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: CONKLIN, Edward Groff
Aged: 63
Born: September 6, 1904
Where: Glen Ridge, New Jersey
Died: July 19, 1968
Where: Pawling, New York
Interred: _ _ _
Married 1: Lucy Tempkin
When: October 1, 1937 (died 1954)
Married 2: Florence Alexander Wohlken
When: June 5, 1958
Awarded: _ _ _
Groff Conklin
"Good science fiction is always fun; some science fiction is
brilliantly satirical; and all of it is superb escapism, pure and simple."
Attended Dartmouth, 2 years, and then Harvard and Columbia to get his BA in 1927. After the Depression hit, Conklin moved between day jobs almost annually and then continued the process in WWII, working for one government agency after another. The last job Groff held was as science editor for The American Heritage Dictionary.
Although skilled as a writer, Conklin did that continually in his various jobs...so his interest in SF as an escape and financial hobby, led him into editing. Groff compiled some of the most outstanding anthologies of all time between 1945 and 1965. During that generation, Groff was the anthologist with over 40 titles of science fiction.
Conklin's life, while not short, was nonetheless shortened by a heavy smoking habit that eventually killed him. More the pity, because Conklin's choices of stories set a direction for SF that was every bit as important as is claimed for John W. Campbell.
PEN NAMES: W. B. de Graeff
BIBLIOGRAPHY: List of anthologies here.
OBITUARY: New York Times, July 20, 1968, p27.
