British SF writers active in 1958?

[major_clanger]

I'm looking to put together a list of British sf authors who were active in 1958, for reasons that will become apparent if you come to the Joint BSFA/SFF Event in London on Saturday 7th June.

Obvious ones: Brian Aldiss, John Wyndham, Arthur C Clarke, Edmund Cooper, Fred Hoyle, Aldous Huxley, Eric Frank Russell, William F Temple, John Brunner, Christopher Hodder-Williams, Hugh Walters, John Christopher, J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis, Mervyn Peake, T H White.

Who am I missing? Criteria is to have been alive in 1958 and actively publishing sf or fantasy then or in the reasonably recent past.

Comments

[timill]

Patrick Moore?

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

J G Ballard, Ken Bulmer, Ted Tubb, Philip E High, Robert Presslie, John Kippax, E R James, Donald Malcolm, Dan Morgan.
---Mark

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

Lan Wright, Sydney Bounds, Arthur Sellings, Colin Kapp.
---Mark

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

F.G. Rayer, if we're pulling names from the Nova magazines.

A.V. Clarke ("Are you the co-author of Space Treason?")

Stephen D. Frances, under various names.

A. Bertram Chandler, who was not actually Australian -- certainly not at this point in time, anyway.

[chilperic.livejournal.com]

Was Colin Kapp publishing as early as 1958? Haven't got any reference books with me. James White? John Rackham?

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

Was Colin Kapp publishing as early as 1958?

Just about (it surprised me too). He had a story in New Worlds that year, although from the look of it he didn't really get going until '59.
---Mark

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

White definitely, The Secret Visitors appeared in '57!

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Charles Eric Maine. Very solidly publishing by '58.

(I tend to be aware of him as David McIlwain, because he was a classmate's uncle.)

Oh, and not to mention that you might have seen some of the following names on the covers of books: Victor La Salle, L. P. Kenton, Robert Lionel, Leo Brett, Bron Fane, Trebor Thorpe, Pel Torro, John E. Muller, Marston Johns and Karl Zeigfreid.

(Yes, Lionel Fanthorpe was in full flow by then.)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I know that Bob Shaw was publishing novels in the very early 1960s -- but I'm not sure exactly when he started. Anyone?

Also: Captain W. E. Johns (aka the guy who wrote the Biggles books) also wrote at least one rather pulpish young-adult SF series, and while I can't remember the titles and timing I'm pretty sure there was at least one of them in the mid-late 1950s.

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

Shaw had published at least half a dozen short stories between 1954 and 1958.
---Mark

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

BoSh makes me think of his fellow Northern Irish writer and near contemporary James White, whose first novel appeared in '57.

Two very humane writers.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The WE Johns series was Kings of Space (1954) and sequels starring Tiger Clinton. Five books by 1958.

http://www.wejohns.com/SciFi/

E.C. Elliot (the Kemlo books) must have been writing by then, but I'm not sure of his nationality.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

E. C. Eliott, real name Reginald Alec Martin, was English. It was only recently that I found out the he also wrote the Pocomoto books under the pseudonym Rex Dixon, they were favourites of mine as a kid. The first Kemlo book was in 1954.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Kings of Space, the first of the W.E. Johns 'Mars' series was published in 1954.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

E C Tubb?

[rhubarbfool.livejournal.com]

Naomi Mitchison's 'Memoirs of a Spacewoman' was pbulished in 1962 as her first SF but she had obviously written lots of non-SF before that.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

Moorcock was just about starting out (possibly pseudonymously) in the late fifties...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Michael Moorcock was already editing magazines, I think, but not yet writing AFAIK.

Now that's just weird - two simultaneous Moorcock posts.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

Wasn't he writing for sf/fantasy comics at the time? (as well as the Sexton Blake Mysteries...).

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Nevil Shute, born Brit but moved to Australia in 1948

In the Wet (1953) is set in the 1980s
On the Beach (1957)

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Fred Hoyle

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Barrington Bayley just scrapes in too.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

"Vargo Statten" - John Russell Fearn. OK, pulpy but very popular back then. First SF appeared in the early 30s.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

How about those two great pseudonymous midlisters:

Sam Youd ("John Christopher") - writing from the early fifties and active in SF from '57.

When did John Middleton Murry ("Richard Cowper") start writing SF? Round about then.

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

When did John Middleton Murry ("Richard Cowper") start writing SF?

Not until the 60s, I think, although he did publish some non-sf in the 50s.
---Mark

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

John Wyndham, "Day of the Triffids".

My, these names bring back memories of great reads.

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

Oops, Wyndham was in your original post.

Wikipedia might help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_science_fiction_writers

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

That's OK, so were Fred Hoyle and John Christopher but it didn't stop people from suggesting them again either :-)

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

J. T. McIntosh, H. J. Campbell.