BLEILER, EVERETT F
(1920-2010) US editor, bibliographer and critic who for many years remained best known as the compiler of The Checklist of Fantastic Literature: A Bibliography of Fantasy, Weird and Science Fiction Books Published in the English Language (1948; rev vt The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction 1978), which SHASTA PUBLISHERS was founded to produce. The Checklist, which lists 5000 books from the period 1800-1948, soon became recognized as the cornerstone of modern sf BIBLIOGRAPHY. In 1948, Bleiler's task was not only to list sf and other fantastic titles accurately; his task was also to try to determine the range of texts which could be so designated. That task has extended into the twenty-first century, and other non-annotated bibliographies – such as R REGINALD's Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature (1979), which lists over 15,000 titles from 1700 to 1974 – have hugely expanded on Bleiler's initial coverage of the field.
Bleiler soon devoted himself to a more intensive kind of bibliographical work, the annotated checklist, and published over the next decades three works of quite extraordinary scope and intensity. The Guide to Supernatural Fiction: A Full Description of 1,775 Books from 1750 to 1960, Including Ghost Stories, Weird Fiction, Stories of Supernatural Horror, Fantasy, Gothic Novels, Occult Fiction, and Similar Literature, with Author, Title and Motif Indexes (1983) provides synopses of hundreds of texts nowhere else notated in detail, though the critical apparatus through which Bleiler views these texts can sometimes seem unduly private. This caveat does not apply to Bleiler's next publications: Science Fiction: The Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-Fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazines in 1930 with Author, Title, and Motif Indexes (dated 1990 but 1991), with the assistance of his son, Richard BLEILER; and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines Amazing, Astounding, Wonder, and Others from 1926 Through 1936 (1998), also with the assistance of Richard BLEILER. All three volumes are annotated with an extraordinary thoroughness; any otherwise unsourced quotations from Bleiler to be found in this encyclopedia – to which he also contributed several entries – come from them, and point to a wider range of background debt, an indebtedness necessarily incurred by all subsequent reference works in the field. Bleiler's sequence of studies stands as a central resource for the study of sf books, along with the work of Neil BARRON, George LOCKE, R REGINALD and Donald TUCK. Two large anthologies of original essays by various hands – Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day (anth 1982; rev 1998 with Richard BLEILER) and Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror (anth 1985 2vols; much cut vt Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror 2003 ed Richard BLEILER) – also traverse, at least in their first iterations, the central regions of the fantastic in literature.
In collaboration with T E DIKTY, Bleiler began to produce in the late 1940s the first sf series of best-of-the-year ANTHOLOGIES, the Best Science Fiction Stories sequence beginning with The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1949 (anth 1949) and ending with The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1954 (anth 1954; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories, Fifth Series 1956 UK). A second series, the Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, presented a selection of longer stories, beginning with Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1952 (anth 1952; cut vt Year's Best Science Fiction Novels 1953 UK) and ending with Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1954 (anth 1954; cut vt Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, Second Series 1955 UK). They have had several successors.
Bleiler joined Dover Publications in 1955, rising to Executive Vice-President in 1967, and retiring in 1977. Beginning with Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce (coll 1964), he edited for the firm a series of well-produced, cogently introduced and sometimes revelatory editions of a wide range of fantasy writers, some of whom had been forgotten; authors assembled include Algernon BLACKWOOD, P Busson, Robert W CHAMBERS, Arthur Conan DOYLE, Lord DUNSANY, M R James, Sheridan Le Fanu, H P LOVECRAFT, G MEYRINK, G M W Reynolds, Mrs J H Riddell and H G WELLS (for Bleiler's editions, see the individual authors). For Dover, Bleiler also edited several anthologies of interest, including Three Gothic Novels: And a Fragment of a Novel by Lord Byron (omni 1966), Five Victorian Ghost Novels (omni 1971), Three Supernatural Novels of the Victorian Period (omni 1975); also of note is A Treasury of Victorian Ghost Stories (anth 1981), for Scribner's. More unusual, and of more original importance than his other anthologies, perhaps, was his edition of The Frank Reade Library (omni 1979-1986 10vols), which reprinted the complete sequence (> FRANK READE LIBRARY; Luis SENARENS). He also translated works from Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, Polish and Swedish; his Prophecies and Enigmas of Nostradamus (trans 1979 US) as by Liberte E LeVert (an anagram of Everett Bleiler) was of some genre interest. Bleiler won the PILGRIM AWARD in 1984.
Firegang: A Mythic Fantasy (2006), Bleiler's only published work of fiction, is a mythological FANTASY whose central venue is Yggdrasil but which ranges over the world and through TIME. In 1988 he received the WORLD FANTASY AWARD for lifetime achievement – the first recipient who was not best known as a fiction writer. [JC]
see also: ANONYMOUS SF AUTHORS; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; HISTORY OF SF; INVENTION; LOST RACES; NEW ZEALAND; PREDICTION; SLEEPER AWAKES.
Everett Franklin Bleiler
born Massachusetts: 30 April 1920
died Interlaken, New York: 13 June 2010
works
fiction
- Firegang: A Mythic Fantasy (Shelburne, Ontario: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2006) [pb/nonpictorial]
works as editor (fiction)
series
Best Science Fiction Stories
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1949 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1949) with T E DIKTY [anth: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/Frank McCarthy]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1950 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1950) with T E DIKTY [anth: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1951) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- Science Fiction Omnibus: The Best Science Fiction Stories (Garden City, New York: Garden City Books, 1952) with T E DIKTY [anth: omni of the above two: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1951 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1951) with T E DIKTY [anth: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, Second Series (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1952) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Mindworm: A Collection of the Best Science Fiction Stories (London: Tandem, 1967) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science-Fiction Stories, 1952 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1952) with T E DIKTY [anth: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, Third Series (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1953) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science-Fiction Stories, 1953 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1953) with T E DIKTY [anth: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, Fourth Series (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1955) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- Frontiers in Space: Selections from the Best Science Fiction Stories (New York: Bantam Books, 1955) with T E DIKTY [anth: selected from the 1951, 1952 and 1953 volumes above: Best Science Fiction Stories: pb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1954 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1954) with T E DIKTY [anth: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
- The Best Science Fiction Stories, Fifth Series (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1956) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: Best Science Fiction Stories: hb/]
Year's Best Science Fiction Novels
- Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1952 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1952) with T E DIKTY [anth: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: hb/]
- Year's Best Science Fiction Novels (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1953) with T E DIKTY [anth: vt of the above: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: hb/]
- Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1953 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1953) with T E DIKTY [anth: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: hb/]
- Category Phoenix (London: The Bodley Head, 1955) with T E DIKTY [anth: vt of the above: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: hb/]
- Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1954 (New York: Frederick Fell, 1954) with T E DIKTY [anth: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: hb/]
- Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, Second Series (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1955) with T E DIKTY [anth: vt of the above: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels: hb/]
individual titles (for individual author collections edited by Bleiler, see those authors)
- Imagination Unlimited: Science Fiction and Science (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1952) with T E DIKTY [anth: hb/]
- Men of Space and Time (London: The Bodley Head, 1953) with T E DIKTY [anth: cut vt of the above: hb/]
- Imagination Unlimited (London: Mayflower Dell, 1964) with T E DIKTY [anth: further cut: pb/Richard POWERS]
- Five Victorian Ghost Novels (New York: Dover Publications, 1971) [omni: pb/]
- Eight Dime Novels (New York: Dover Publications, 1974) [omni: pb/]
- Three Supernatural Novels of the Victorian Period (New York: Dover Publications, 1975) [anth: pb/]
- Prophecies and Enigmas of Nostradamus (Glen Rock, New Jersey: Firebell Books, 1979) as by Liberte E LeVert [trans from Nostradamus: hb/]
- The Frank Reade Library (New York: Garland Publishing Co, 1979-1986) [anth: published in 10 volumes: Frank Reade Library: hb/]
- A Treasury of Victorian Ghost Stories (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981) [anth: hb/]
nonfiction
- The Checklist of Fantastic Literature: A Bibliography of Fantasy, Weird and Science Fiction Books Published in the English Language (Chicago, Illinois: Shasta Publishers, 1948) [bibliography: hb/Hannes BOK]
- The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction (Glen Rock, New Jersey: Firebell Books, 1978) [bibliography: rev vt of the above: much expanded: hb/]
- The Guide to Supernatural Fiction: A Full Description of 1,775 Books from 1750 to 1960, Including Ghost Stories, Weird Fiction, Stories of Supernatural Horror, Fantasy, Gothic Novels, Occult Fiction, and Similar Literature, with Author, Title and Motif Indexes (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1983) [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
- Science Fiction: The Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-Fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazines in 1930 with Author, Title, and Motif Indexes (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991) with the assistance of Richard BLEILER [nonfiction: dated 1990 but published 1991: hb/nonpictorial]
- Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines Amazing, Astounding, Wonder, and Others from 1926 Through 1936 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998) with the assistance of Richard BLEILER [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
works as editor
- Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]
- Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985) [nonfiction: anth: published in two volumes: hb/]
- Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror (New York: Thomson Gale/Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003) edited by Richard BLEILER [nonfiction: anth: rev vt of the above: published in two volumes: extensive recasting with cuts and additions: Richard Bleiler is Bleiler's son: hb/]
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