John W. Campbell, Jr., has been called perhaps the first writer to devote his life deliberately to science fiction, and certainly an examination of a career begun at the age of eighteen and continued until his death at sixty-one bears out this statement. Campbell believed strongly in the worth of science fiction; he is said to have dismissed mainstream fiction as a mere subheading in his chosen area of concentration. He devoted himself to helping the genre find what he considered to be its proper direction, its full potential. As a writer his work inspired wide imitation. It was, however, as editor of the dominant Astounding Science Fiction (originally Astounding Stories, later Analog) that Campbell's concepts became a major influence, creating much of the genre's Golden Age and establishing a tradition of science fiction which today bears his name.

John Wood Campbell, Jr., was born in Newark, New...