John campbell author biography essay

Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.

(1910-1971) US author and editor who took a degree in physics in 1932 from MIT and Duke University, where it is likely he became aware of J B Rhine's early experiments in parapsychology (see Pseudoscience).

Campbell was a devotee of the SF Magazines from their inception, and sold his first stories while still a teenager, beginning with "Invaders from the Infinite" to Amazing Stories; however, the manuscript was lost by editor T O'Conor Sloane, so it was his second sale, When the Atoms Failed (January 1930 Amazing; 2016 dos), that became his first published story.

An inferior novel drafted circa 1928 was rewritten at Campbell's request by Clifford D Simak in 1939 or 1940 and eventually appeared as Empire: A Powerful Novel of Intrigue and Action in the Not-So-Distant Future (1951) as by Simak alone, Campbell having refused both to be co-credited or to share the receipts.

In the early 1930s Campbell quickly built a re