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Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 - June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.

He is best known as the author of , a 1954 science fiction horror novel that has been adapted for the screen three times. Matheson himself was co-writer of the first film version, The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, which was released in 1964. The other two adaptations were The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston, and , with Will Smith. Matheson also wrote 16 television episodes of The Twilight Zone, including " Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", " Little Girl Lost" and " Steel", as well as several adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories for Roger Corman and American International Pictures - House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror and . He adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay, directed by Steven Spielberg as the television film of the same name that year.

In addition to I Am Legend and Duel, nine more of his novels and short stories have been adapted as motion pictures: The Shrinking Man (filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man), (filmed as The Legend of Hell House), What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere in Time), A Stir of Echoes, Steel (filmed as ), and Button, Button (filmed as ). The movie was based on his novel Ride the Nightmare, and Les seins de glace (Icy Breasts) was based on his novel Someone Is Bleeding. Both Steel and Button had previously been episodes of The Twilight Zone.

Matheson was born in Allendale, New Jersey, to Norwegian immigrants Bertolf and Fanny Matheson. They divorced when he was eight, and he was raised in Brooklyn, New York, by his mother. His early writing influences were the film (1931), novels by Kenneth Roberts, and a poem which he read in the newspaper Brooklyn Eagle, where he published his first short story at age eight. He entered Brooklyn Technical High School in 1939, graduated in 1943, and served with the Army in Europe during World War II; this formed the basis for his 1960 novel The Beardless Warriors. He attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, earning his BA in 1949, then moved to California.

His first-written novel, Hunger and Thirst, was ignored by publishers for several decades before eventually being published in 2010, but his short story " Born of Man and Woman" was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction's summer 1950 issue, the new quarterly's third issue, and attracted attention. It is the tale of a monstrous child chained by its parents in the cellar, written in the form of the creature's diary and using non- idiomatic English. Later that year, Matheson placed stories in the first and third issues of Galaxy Science Fiction, a new monthly. His first anthology of work was published in 1954. Between 1950 and 1971, he produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres.

He was a member of the "Southern California Sorcerers" group in the 1950s and 1960s, a collective of west coast writers which included Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Jerry Sohl, and others.

Matheson's first novel to be published, Someone Is Bleeding, appeared from Lion Books in 1953. In the 1950s, he published a handful of Western stories (later collected in By the Gun), and in the 1990s, he published Western novels such as Journal of the Gun Years, The Gunfight, The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok, and Shadow on the Sun.

His other early novels include The Shrinking Man (1956, filmed in 1957 as The Incredible Shrinking Man, again from Matheson's own screenplay) and a science fiction vampire novel, (1954, filmed as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, The Omega Man in 1971, and in 2007). In 1960, Matheson published The Beardless Warriors, a non-fantastic, autobiographical novel about teenage American soldiers in World War II. It was filmed in 1967 as The Young Warriors, though most of Matheson's plot was jettisoned.

Matheson wrote teleplays for several television programs, including the Westerns , Have Gun - Will Travel, and . He also wrote the episode " The Enemy Within" (1966). However, he is most closely associated with the American TV series The Twilight Zone, for which he wrote more than a dozen episodes, including " Steel" (1963), " Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963), " Little Girl Lost" (1962), and " Death Ship" (1963). For all of his Twilight Zone scripts, Matheson wrote the introductory and closing statements spoken by creator Rod Serling. He adapted five works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman's Poe series, including House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and (1963). He was one of the key screenwriters in Corman's career.

For Hammer Film Productions, he wrote the screenplay for (1965; US title: Die! Die! My Darling!), starring Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers and based on the novel Nightmare by Anne Blaisdell; he also adapted for Hammer Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out (1968).

In 1971, Mattheson's short story "Duel" was adapted into the TV movie of the same name. In 1973, Matheson earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for The Night Stalker (1972), one of two TV movies written by Matheson, the other being The Night Strangler (1973), which preceded the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Matheson worked extensively with Curtis; the 1977 television anthology film Dead of Night features three stories written for the screen by Matheson: "Second Chance" (based on the story by Jack Finney); "No Such Thing as a Vampire" (based on Matheson's story of the same name); and "Bobby", an original script written for this anthology by Matheson.

Three of his short stories were filmed together as Trilogy of Terror (1975), including "Prey" (initially published in the April 1969 issue of magazine), a tale of a Zuni warrior fetish doll. The doll later reappeared in the final segment of the belated sequel to the first movie, Trilogy of Terror II (1996), and "Bobby" from Dead of Night was refilmed with different actors for the second segment of the film.

Other Matheson novels adapted into films in the 1970s include Bid Time Return (1975, released as Somewhere in Time in 1980), and (1971, released as The Legend of Hell House in 1973), both adapted and scripted by Matheson himself.

In the 1980s, Matheson published the novel Earthbound, wrote several screenplays for the TV series Amazing Stories, and continued to publish short fiction.

Matheson published four Western novels in this decade, as well as the suspense novel Seven Steps to Midnight (1993) and the darkly comic locked-room mystery novel Now You See It ... (1995), dedicated to Robert Bloch.

He also wrote the screenplays for several movies, including the comedy Loose Cannons (1990) and the television biopic The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story (1990), as well as a segment of Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994) and segments of Trilogy of Terror II. Matheson continued to write short stories, and two more of his novels were adapted by others for the big screen: What Dreams May Come (1998) and A Stir of Echoes (1999, as Stir of Echoes). In 1999, Matheson published a non-fiction work, The Path, inspired by his interest in psychic phenomena.

Many previously unpublished novels by Matheson appeared late in his career, as did various collections of his work and previously unpublished screenplays. He also wrote new works, such as the suspense novel Hunted Past Reason (2002) and the children's illustrated fantasy Abu and the 7 Marvels (2002).

Several of Mattheson's stories, including " Third from the Sun" (1950), "Deadline" (1959), and "Button, Button" (1970), are simple sketches with twist endings; others, like "Trespass" (1953), "Being" (1954), and "Mute" (1962), explore their characters' dilemmas over 20 or 30 pages. Some tales, such as "The Doll that Does Everything" (1954) and "The Funeral" (1955), incorporate satirical humor at the expense of genre clichés, and are written in bombastic prose that differed from Matheson's usual pared-down style. Others, like "The Test" (1954) and "Steel" (1956), portray the moral and physical struggles of ordinary people, rather than those of scientists and superheroes, in situations which are at once futuristic and quotidian. Still others, such as "Mad House" (1953), "The Curious Child" (1954) and "Duel" (1971), are tales of paranoia, in which the commonplace environment of the present day becomes inexplicably alien or threatening.

Matheson cited specific inspirations for many of his works. Duel was derived from an incident in which he and friend Jerry Sohl were dangerously tailgated by a large truck on the same day as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

According to film critic Roger Ebert, Matheson's scientific approach to the supernatural in I Am Legend and other novels from the 1950s and early 1960s "anticipated pseudorealistic fantasy novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist."

In 1952, Matheson married Ruth Ann Woodson, whom he met in California. They had four children: Bettina Mayberry, Richard Christian, Christopher Matheson and Ali Marie Matheson. Richard, Chris, and Ali became writers of fiction and screenplays.

Matheson received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984 and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Horror Writers Association in 1991. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2010.

At the annual World Fantasy Conventions, he won two judged, annual literary awards for particular works: World Fantasy Awards for Bid Time Return as the best novel of 1975 and Richard Matheson: Collected Stories as the best collection of 1989.

Matheson died just days before he was due to receive the Visionary Award at the 39th Saturn Awards ceremony. As a tribute, the ceremony was dedicated to him and the award was presented posthumously. Academy president Robert Holguin said, "Richard's accomplishments will live on forever in the imaginations of everyone who read or saw his inspired and inimitable work."

Stephen King has listed Matheson as a creative influence, and his novels (2006) and (2018) are dedicated to Matheson, along with filmmaker George A. Romero. Romero frequently acknowledged Matheson as an inspiration and listed the shambling vampire creatures that appear in The Last Man on Earth, the first film version of I Am Legend, as the inspiration for the zombie "ghouls" he envisioned in Night of the Living Dead.

Anne Rice stated that Matheson's short story "Dress of White Silk" was an early influence on her interest in vampires and fantasy fiction.

After his death, several figures offered tributes to his life and work. Director Steven Spielberg said:

Richard Matheson's ironic and iconic imagination created seminal science-fiction stories and gave me my first break when he wrote the short story and screenplay for Duel. His Twilight Zones were among my favorites, and he recently worked with us on . For me, he is in the same category as Bradbury and Asimov.

Another frequent collaborator, Roger Corman, said:

Richard Matheson was a close friend and the best screenwriter I ever worked with. I always shot his first draft. I will miss him.

On Twitter, director Edgar Wright wrote, "If it's true that the great Richard Matheson has passed away, 140 characters can't begin to cover what he has given the sci fi & horror genre." Director Richard Kelly added, "I loved Richard Matheson's writing and it was a huge honor getting to adapt his story 'Button, Button' into a film. RIP."

For television films, see Television section below.

The Path: Metaphysics for the 90s (1993)

The Path: A New Look at Reality (1999)

California Sorcery, edited by William F. Nolan and William Schafer

Jad Hatem, Charité de l'infinitésimal, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2007

1. ^ Richard Matheson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB). Retrieved April 13, 2013.

2. ^ Hawtree, Christopher (June 25, 2013). "Richard Matheson obituary". Guardian.co.uk. London.

3. ^ Weber, Bruce (June 25, 2013). "Richard matheson, Writer of Haunted Science Fictionand Horror, Dies at 87". New York Times.

4. ^ Alexander, Chris (March 2011). "The Legend of Richard Matheson". Fangoria (301). New York City: The Brooklyn Company, Inc.: 47. ... the things Serling said at the beginning and the end, in the wraparounds, which I wrote. I wrote all the wraparounds to my Twilight Zone episodes.

5. ^ Miska, Brad (November 4, 2009). "What Screams May Come: A Look at the Legendary Richard Matheson". Bloody Disgusting.

6. ^ Bernstein, Adam (May 18, 2023). "Prolific author Richard Matheson, 87, wrote novels, screenplays, 'Twilight Zone' episodes". Washington Post.

7. ^ Kellogg, Carolyn (June 24, 2013). "'I Am Legend' Author Richard Matheson Has Died at 87". Los Angeles Times.

8. ^ "Matheson, Richard". The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Literary Nominees. Locus Publications. Archived from the original on August 4, 2011.

9. ^ "Science Fiction Hall of Fame". Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. EMP SFM is proud to announce the 2010 Hall of Fame inductees: ...

10. The tribute anthology ^ He Is Legend was published by Gauntlet Press in 2009."He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson". Gauntlet Press.

11. ^ Christie, Deborah; Lauro, Sarah Juliet (2011). Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human. Fordham University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-8232-3447-9.

12. ^ Brettauer, Kevin (June 28, 2013). "'Entering the Unassailable Fortress of Forever': As a Writer, Richard Matheson Was 'One for the Books'". .

13. ^ Olsen, Mark (June 24, 2013). "'I Am Legend' writer Richard Matheson's legacy of smart sci-fi". Los Angeles Times.

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Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 - June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of , a 1954 science fiction horror novel that has been adapted for the screen three times.

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (usually referred to as F&SF) is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Fantasy House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy, but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. F&SF was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine".

F&SF quickly became one of the leading magazines in the science fiction and fantasy field, with a reputation for publishing literary material and including more diverse stories than its competitors. Well-known stories that appeared in its early years include Richard Matheson's " Born of Man and Woman", and Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee, a novel of an alternative history in which the South has won the American Civil War. McComas left for health reasons in 1954, but Boucher continued as sole editor until 1958, winning the Hugo Award for Best Magazine that year, a feat his successor, Robert Mills, repeated in the next two years. Mills was responsible for publishing Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, by Algis Budrys, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, and the first of Brian Aldiss's stories. The first few issues mostly featured cover art by George Salter, Mercury Press's art director, but other artists soon began to appear, including Chesley Bonestell, Kelly Freas, and Ed Emshwiller.

In 1962, Mills was succeeded as editor by Avram Davidson. When Davidson left at the end of 1964, Joseph Ferman, who had bought the magazine from Spivak in 1954, took over briefly as editor, though his son Edward soon began doing the editorial work under his father's supervision. At the start of 1966 Edward Ferman was listed as editor, and four years later he acquired the magazine from his father and moved the editorial offices to his house in Connecticut. Ferman remained editor for over 25 years, and published many well-received stories, including Fritz Leiber's " Ill Met in Lankhmar", Robert Silverberg's " Born with the Dead", and Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. In 1991 he turned the editorship over to Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who began including more horror and dark fantasy than had appeared under Ferman. In the mid-1990s circulation began to decline; most magazines were losing subscribers and F&SF was no exception. Gordon Van Gelder replaced Rusch in 1997, and bought the magazine from Ferman in 2001, but circulation continued to fall, and by 2011 it was below 15,000. Charles Coleman Finlay took over from Van Gelder as editor in 2015. Sheree Renée Thomas succeeded Charles Coleman Finlay, becoming the magazine's tenth editor in Fall 2020.

The first magazine dedicated to fantasy, Weird Tales, appeared in 1923; it was followed in 1926 by Amazing Stories, the first science fiction (sf) magazine. By the end of the 1930s, the genre was flourishing in the United States, nearly twenty new sf and fantasy titles appearing between 1938 and 1941. These were all pulp magazines, which meant that despite the occasional high-quality story, most of the magazines presented badly written fiction and were regarded as trash by many readers. In 1941, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine appeared, edited by Fred Dannay and focusing on detective fiction. The magazine was published in digest format, rather than pulp, and printed a mixture of classic stories and fresh material. Dannay attempted to avoid the sensationalist fiction appearing in the pulps, and soon made the magazine a success.

In the early 1940s Anthony Boucher, a successful writer of fantasy and sf and also of mystery stories, got to know Dannay through his work on the Ellery Queen radio show. Boucher also knew J. Francis McComas, an editor who shared his interest in fantasy and SF. By 1944 McComas and Boucher became interested in the idea of a fantasy companion to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and spoke to Dannay about it. Dannay was interested in the idea, but paper was scarce because of World War II. The following year Boucher and McComas suggested that the new magazine could use the Ellery Queen name, but Dannay knew little about fantasy and suggested instead that they approach Lawrence Spivak, the owner of Mercury Press, which published Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

In January 1946, Boucher and McComas went to New York and met with Spivak, who let them know later in the year that he wanted to go ahead. At Spivak's request they began acquiring material for the new magazine, including a new story by Raymond Chandler, and reprint rights to stories by H.P. Lovecraft, John Dickson Carr, and Robert Bloch. Spivak initially planned the first issue (for which Boucher and McComas were proposing the title Fantasy and Horror) for early 1947, but repeatedly delayed the launch because of poor newsstand sales of digest magazines. He also suggested that it should be priced at 35 cents an issue, which was higher than the original plan, to provide a financial buffer against poor sales. In May 1949 Spivak suggested a new title, The Magazine of Fantasy, and in August a press release announced that the magazine would appear in October. On October 6, 1949, Spivak, Boucher and McComas held a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe and to launch "a new fantasy anthology periodical". Invitees included Carr, Basil Rathbone, and Boris Karloff.

The first issue, published by Fantasy House, a subsidiary of American Mercury, sold 57,000 copies, which was less than Spivak had hoped for, but in November he gave Boucher and McComas the go-ahead for another issue. The title was changed to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (almost always abbreviated to F&SF by both fans and science fiction historians) to reflect the contents. Sales of the second issue were strong enough for Spivak to commit further, and the magazine's future became more assured, despite the difficulties caused by the fact that both Boucher and McComas lived on the west coast, whereas the magazine's publishing offices were in New York. The publishing schedule moved to bimonthly with the December 1950 issue. The pay rate for the early issues was two cents per word, or $100 for short pieces, which was competitive with Astounding Science Fiction, the leading sf magazine of the day. By 1953 the rates had changed to three-and-a-half cents per word for stories under 3,000 words.

In 1951, McComas, who had a full-time job in sales on top of his role as editor of F&SF, was forced to reduce his workload for health reasons. Boucher then did most of the reading and editing, while McComas reviewed the results and occasionally vetoed a story. In August the following year the schedule switched to monthly. In 1954 Spivak sold his shares in Mercury Press to his general manager, Joseph Ferman; that year also saw McComas's departure-his health had deteriorated to the point where he had to give up the editing post completely.

In 1957 Ferman launched a companion magazine, Venture Science Fiction, which was intended to focus on more action-oriented fiction than F&SF. Boucher was unable to take on the extra work, so Robert P. Mills, who had been the managing editor for F&SF, became Venture's editor, with Boucher in an advisory role. Later that year Ferman sold Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine to Bernard Davis, who was leaving Ziff-Davis to start his own publishing venture. Ferman retained F&SF, though Boucher departed, and Mills became the editor of F&SF while remaining managing editor of Queen's magazine. Mills stayed for over three years, leaving at the end of 1961 to spend more time working as a literary agent, and Ferman replaced him with Avram Davidson, whose name first appeared on the masthead with the April 1962 issue. Joseph Ferman's son Edward had worked for the magazine as an editorial assistant in the 1950s, but left in 1959 to gain experience elsewhere; he returned in 1962, and worked under Davidson as managing editor. In 1963 Ted White, later the editor of Amazing Stories, became assistant editor, and stayed with the magazine until 1968.

Davidson gave up the editor's chair in late 1964 in order to have more time to write, and was initially replaced by Joseph Ferman, who handed over control to his son Edward from May 1965, though the masthead did not reflect the change till 1966. Four years later the younger Ferman took over from his father as publisher as well, and moved the editorial and publishing offices to his house in Cornwall, Connecticut. His wife, Audrey, was business manager, and Andrew Porter was an assistant editor. In the early 1970s Ferman contacted Sol Cohen, the owner of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Stories, two competing sf magazines, about purchasing them both. Ferman was considering combining them into a single magazine and publishing them alongside F&SF, but Cohen decided to keep both titles.

In 1969, an issue of F&SF was priced at 50 cents; by the end of the 1970s the price had gone up to $1.25, although the page count also rose, from 128 to 160 pages. Circulation did not suffer, but rose from 50,000 to over 60,000, partly because of subscription drives through Publishers' Clearing House, and perhaps also because the magazine's quality remained consistent throughout the decade. In Ashley's words, " F&SF delivered the goods month after month": the schedule was reliable, the format remained unchanged, and the editor remained the same from 1965 throughout the next two decades and more. Ferman managed to keep the circulation above 50,000, and sometimes above 60,000, during the 1980s when most other magazines were losing subscribers. He turned over the editorship to Kristine Kathryn Rusch in 1991, and by the mid-1990s circulation began to fall again. In 1997 Gordon Van Gelder took over as editor, and from the February 2001 issue was publisher as well, having bought the magazine from Ferman. John Joseph Adams was Van Gelder's assistant editor from 2001 until December 2009. Van Gelder was unable to arrest the decline in circulation, which by 2011 was down to less than 15,000. Van Gelder reduced the publication frequency to bimonthly, increasing the page count and price. Charles Coleman Finlay guest-edited the July/August 2014 issue, and was hired in 2015 as full-time editor, beginning with the March/April 2015 issue. Sheree Renée Thomas was hired as editor, beginning with the March/April 2021 issue.

Boucher, McComas, Mills and Davidson

Boucher and McComas's original goal for the new magazine was to imitate the formula that had made Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine successful: classic reprints, along with quality fiction that avoided the excesses of the pulps. The initial proposal called for the magazine to include fantasy, but not science fiction. Even before the launch, the editors found they were having trouble deciding exactly where the boundary lay, so when in February 1949 Joseph Ferman, Spivak's general manager, asked them to add sf to the lineup as a way to broaden the readership, they were happy to comply. The first issue included only one story that could be called science fiction: Theodore Sturgeon's "The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast"; it also included reprints from the slick magazines by writers such as Richard Sale, and Guy Endore. The interior layout was quite different from the existing fantasy and sf magazines: there were no interior illustrations, and the text was printed in a single column, instead of two as was usual elsewhere. There was a book review column, but no letters page. According to sf historian Mike Ashley, this "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine". The logo design and layout were the work of Mercury Press's art director, George Salter, whose background was in book design rather than in pulp magazines. Salter remained with the magazine until 1958. He was responsible for many of the surreal early covers; these gave way to work by other artists, but his design for F&SF remained intact for decades, and in Ashley's opinion the consistency of appearance has been "one of the major selling points" of the magazine.

When the second issue appeared, with the title revised to include "Science Fiction", there was no announcement of the change, and not much more science fiction than in the first issue. Damon Knight contributed one example, "Not with a Bang", which Knight has described as his first fully professional story. The next issue included Richard Matheson's first sale, " Born of Man and Woman", widely considered one of the finest stories F&SF ever published. Over the next few years several writers became strongly associated with the magazine, including Margaret St. Clair, Reginald Bretnor, Miriam Allen deFord, and Zenna Henderson, and Boucher was also able to attract some of the best-known established names, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Leiber, and Ray Bradbury. Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp began their " Gavagan's Bar" series of stories in the first issue of F&SF, and Manly Wade Wellman published the first of his " John the Balladeer" stories in the December 1951 issue. The focus was on short fiction; serials and novels were mainly avoided. One exception was Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee, an alternative history set in a world where the South wins the American Civil War. Boucher bought "A Canticle for Leibowitz" from Walter M. Miller, who had been unable to sell it elsewhere, and printed it in the April 1955 issue; it was the first story in the series that would become the novel of the same name, and has since become recognized as a classic of the genre.

A controversial article by the astronomer R.S. Richardson titled "The Day After We Land on Mars" appeared in the December 1955 issue; Richardson commented that an exploration of other worlds would require "the men stationed on a planet [to be] openly accompanied by women to relieve the sexual tensions that develop among normal healthy males". Responses by Poul Anderson and Miriam Allen deFord appeared in F&SF the following year. DeFord argued that Richardson was assuming that women were not people in the same way as men, and the controversy has since been cited as part of the long debate within the genre about the image of women in science fiction.

In 1958 F&SF won its first Hugo Award for Best Magazine, and when Mills became editor that year he maintained the high standards Boucher had set, winning the award again in 1959 and 1960. Mills continued to publish a broad range of material without limiting the magazine to particular subgenres. Ashley cites John Collier, Robert Arthur, Allen Drury, and Ray Bradbury, all authors with mainstream reputations who appeared in F&SF in 1960, as evidence of the magazine's diversity. Daniel Keyes had been unable to sell " Flowers for Algernon" until Mills bought it in 1959; it went on to win several awards and according to Clute and Nicholls is "arguably the most popular sf novel ever published". , a novel about a deadly artifact left by aliens on the moon, is often considered Algis Budrys's best novel; it appeared in 1960, and the following year saw Brian Aldiss's "Hothouse", the first in that series. (Budrys later said that what he described as the "cuteness of the early F&SF school of editing-and its open contempt for the accomplishments of the Campbellian school" had resulted in "buckets and buckets of froth" but, more favorably, "Liberal Arts concepts in what had been almost exclusively a B. S. field".) Zenna Henderson's stories of The People, a group of refugee humanoid aliens hiding on Earth, were published through the 1950s and 1960s and became a "central feature" of the magazine according to sf critic John Clute. Boucher published Damon Knight's "The Country of the Kind", described by Ashley as "one of his most potent stories from the fifties", in 1956, and the same year, under the pseudonym "Grendel Briarton", Reginald Bretnor began a series of punning stories known as "Feghoots" that lasted until 1964. At the end of the 1950s, during Mills' tenure as editor, Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers was serialized in F&SF, under the title Starship Soldier; this was intended to be a juvenile novel but was rejected by Scribner's for being too violent. It won the Hugo Award in the novel category the following year, and proved to be one of Heinlein's most controversial books.

Among the cover artists in the first decade, sf historian and critic Thomas Clareson singles out the early astronomical scenes by Chesley Bonestell as being the most notable; these were among the first to replace George Salter's surreal artwork on the cover. Kelly Freas and Ed Emshwiller, two of the most popular artists in the sf field, also contributed covers during the 1950s. Mel Hunter began contributing covers with the November 1953 issue, and in October 1955 began a long-running series of covers that depicted a robot survivor of a nuclear holocaust engaging in human activities amidst the desolation-watering a flower, playing with toys, or reading a store catalog, for example. A regular book review column appeared, titled "Recommended Reading"; it was signed simply "The Editors" until McComas ceased to be one of the co-editors, after which Boucher used his own name. According to Clareson, the column "long remained the most catholic appraisal of the field" because of the variety of works reviewed. Boucher did not review his own fiction in the column, though on at least one occasion he listed a new book of his, telling the reader: "Comments eagerly welcomed; in this case, you are the reviewer". When Boucher left, he was succeeded by Damon Knight as book reviewer; Alfred Bester took over in 1960 and remained in the role until Avram Davidson became the book reviewer when he took the editorial chair. Isaac Asimov had begun a series of science articles for Venture Science Fiction in January 1958, and when Venture was cancelled Mills brought the science column over to F&SF. The column, which according to Asimov he enjoyed writing more than any of his other works, ran for decades without interruption, helping to contribute to a long-standing feeling of consistency and continuity in F&SF's format and contents.

Avram Davidson, who became editor in 1962, had sold his first story to F&SF in 1954, though he was better remembered for "The Golem", which appeared in the March 1955 issue. Under Davidson more work appeared by non-English-speaking writers such as Hugo Correa, Herbert Franke, and Shin'ishi Hoshi. Notable stories he acquired for F&SF include Terry Carr's first sale, "Who Sups with the Devil?", in 1962, and Roger Zelazny's " A Rose for Ecclesiastes" in November 1963. He published two "author special" issues: Theodore Sturgeon was featured in the September 1962 issue, and Ray Bradbury in May 1963. These author issues, which had been Joseph Ferman's idea, became a regular feature, with subsequent issues featuring Isaac Asimov (October 1966), Fritz Leiber (July 1969), Poul Anderson (April 1971), James Blish (April 1972), Frederik Pohl (September 1973), Robert Silverberg (April 1974), Damon Knight (November 1976), Harlan Ellison (July 1977), Stephen King (December 1990), Lucius Shepard (March 2001), Kate Wilhelm (September 2001), Barry N. Malzberg (June 2003), Gene Wolfe (April 2007), and David Gerrold (September/October 2016).

Joseph Ferman's son, Edward Ferman, was managing editor during Davidson's tenure as editor. When Davidson left, Joseph Ferman took over the editorial chair, but in reality Edward Ferman was doing all the editorial work, and by the May 1965 issue was in full control of the magazine. It remained eclectic through the 1960s and 1970s, publishing work by New Wave writers such as Thomas Disch and John Sladek, along with new US writers such as Samuel Delany and Roger Zelazny, hard science fiction stories by Gregory Benford and John Varley, fantasies by Sterling Lanier and Tom Reamy, and horror by Charles L. Grant and Stephen King. The mid-1960s saw an increase in the diversity of stories appearing elsewhere in the field; magazines like and Science Fantasy published material that previously could only have appeared in F&SF. Sf author Christopher Priest, writing in 1978, commented that many writers later considered part of the New Wave soon found "a natural home for their work" in F&SF. In Ashley's view the rest of the field was starting to catch up to F&SF's open-mindedness, but this did not lead to a drop in F&SF's quality; the end of the 1960s saw Ferman printing some old-fashioned material such as John Christopher's novel about miniaturization, The Little People, alongside much of Roger Zelazny's early output, and "anarchic and often indefinable" stories by R.A. Lafferty, Harvey Jacobs, and others. In 1968, Piers Anthony's early novel Sos the Rope was serialized; Anthony had won a competition sponsored in part by F&SF.

Harlan Ellison and James Tiptree, Jr. were frequent contributors in the 1970s, Tiptree contributing some of her best-known stories, such as " And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" and " The Women Men Don't See"; Ellison's many stories in F&SF included " The Deathbird", in 1973, which won a Hugo Award, and " Jeffty Is Five" in 1977, which won both a Hugo and a Nebula Award. Other award-winning stories from Ferman's first decade and a half included Fritz Leiber's "Ship of Shadows" in 1969, " Ill Met in Lankhmar" in 1970, and " Catch That Zeppelin" in 1975; all three won Hugos, and the latter two also won Nebulas. Poul Anderson's " The Queen of Air and Darkness" won both a Hugo and a Nebula, Robert Silverberg's " Born with the Dead" won a Nebula, and Frederik Pohl's novel of Martian colonization, , also won a Nebula.

Judith Merril took over the book review column on Davidson's departure, and was followed by James Blish in 1970 and Algis Budrys in 1975, with frequent contributions from other reviewers such as Joanna Russ and Gahan Wilson. In 1965 Wilson began contributing cartoons, and continued to do so regularly until 1981. Ferman set a humorous competition for the readers in the November 1971 issue, and thereafter ran two or three similar competitions every year. These were later collected in a 1996 anthology, titled Oi, Robot, the title taken from a competition to add a single letter to a well-known work of SF. A film review column, the first in the magazine since Charles Beaumont's "The Science Screen" (and "William Morrison" aka Joseph Samachson's live-theater column "The Science Stage") in the latter 1950s, conducted by Samuel R. Delany, commenced in 1969; Baird Searles contributed the column between 1970 and 1984. Among the later reviewers, Ellison was one of the most popular, and columns from his first four years were collected as Harlan Ellison's Watching in 1989.

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine was launched in 1977 and from 1983, under the editorships of Shawna McCarthy and later Gardner Dozois, it began to publish more mature material, becoming a more direct competitor to F&SF's market niche. Authors such as Lucius Shepard, James Blaylock, and John Crowley, whose work was a natural fit for F&SF, were selling to Asimov's as well. The launch of in 1978 also had an impact. For almost every year in the 1970s stories published in F&SF won more award nominations, and were selected for more "Year's Best" anthologies, than the other magazines; in the 1980s that was no longer true, as Asimov's took over the leading role, and Omni sometimes pushed F&SF into third place. Ferman was still able to acquire some highly regarded material, such as "Lost Boys" by Orson Scott Card, and by Mike Resnick. When Omni rejected George R.R. Martin's "Monkey Treatment" and Gardner Dozois's "Down Among the Dead Men", which were dark fantasy, Ferman acquired both. Along with these regular columns, Ferman occasionally published articles, such as "Science Fiction and the University", a feature in the May 1972 issue that included contributions from Darko Suvin, Thomas Clareson, and Philip Klass.

F&SF won the Hugo Award for Best Magazine for four consecutive years, from 1969 through 1972, when the award was changed to "Best Professional Editor". Initially this category was dominated by Ben Bova, the editor of , but Ferman won it for three more years at the start of the 1980s.

Some of the artists who had provided covers for early issues of F&SF, including Chesley Bonestell, Ed Emshwiller, and Alex Schomburg, were still contributing their work into the late 1970s, and many of the regular writers from the early years, such as Reginald Bretnor, Ron Goulart, and Hilbert Schenck, continued to appear in F&SF into the 1980s. A newer group, including Joanna Russ and R.A. Lafferty, had become regulars more recently. Some established writers such as Thomas Disch published their more unusual work in F&SF, and there were also writers such as Felix C. Gotschalk, whose unusual stories were described by Ferman as "a step ahead of most sf writers (or perhaps he's marching in a different direction)". In Ashley's opinion, Ferman managed to "balance the work of these eccentric writers so that they never distorted the contents yet kept the magazine on the edge".

Newer writers who began to appear regularly in the 1980s included Bruce Sterling, who published his early Shaper/Mechanist stories in F&SF, beginning with "Swarm", in 1982. Stephen King's " The Dark Tower" series had begun in 1979 in F&SF, and four more stories appeared over the next three years before being collected as a novel in 1982; and Michael Shea and Bob Leman contributed horror and weird fiction regularly in the 1980s. Despite the increased competition from Omni and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Ferman managed to keep F&SF's reputation for quality intact throughout the 1980s; it was not as distinct from its competition as it had once been, but it retained an "idiosyncratic individuality", in Ashley's words.

Under Kristine Kathryn Rusch F&SF began to publish more dark fantasy and horror stories, such as "The Night We Buried Road Dog" by Jack Cady, which won a Nebula Award. When Rusch took over as editor, Isaac Asimov had been writing the science column for over three decades, and Algis Budrys had been contributing a book review column since 1975; in 1992 Asimov died and Budrys departed. The science column ran for 399 consecutive issues, ending in February 1992. Asimov's widow, Janet Asimov, wrote another essay for the December 1994 issue, based on her conversations with her husband before his death, and a final essay appeared in January 1996, containing material from the book Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters. The science column continued to appear, written by Bruce Sterling and Gregory Benford among others, and John Kessel took over the book reviews; Robert Killheffer succeeded Kessel, with some overlap in 1994 and 1995. Asimov's maintained its dominance of the field through the 1990s, though Rusch published well-received material such as "The Martian Child" by David Gerrold and "Last Summer at Mars Hill" by Elizabeth Hand. Rusch won one Hugo Award as editor during her five years at F&SF, in 1994.

Van Gelder printed more fantasy and less hard science fiction than had Rusch, and in Ashley's opinion he was able to "restore some of the magazine's distinctiveness". As a result of the switch to bimonthly in 2009, with the resulting higher page count in each issue, the magazine began to publish longer stories.

F&SF quickly established itself as one of the leading magazines. Ashley describes it as bridging "the attitude gap between the slick magazines and the pulps"', and argues that it made the genre more respectable. The fantasy side of the magazine attracted writers who had been regular contributors to Weird Tales and Unknown, two of the best-known fantasy pulps, and in Ashley's opinion, it soon found a "middle ground" between those pulp traditions and fantasy written for the slicks. It was known as the most literary of the science fiction and fantasy magazines, and it published the most diverse range of material. In a 1978 review of New Wave SF, Christopher Priest agreed that F&SF has a bias for literary work, and added that "it has been a sort of New Wave of its own ever since its inception".

From the 1950s, F&SF was regarded as one of the "big three" science fiction magazines, along with Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction. In a review of a 1952 issue, James Blish (writing as William Atheling, Jr.) commented that much of the magazine to that point was wonderfully written, and that Boucher's and McComas's editorial acumen made F&SF very readable, but that on occasion a well-written, sophisticated, but unoriginal science fiction story might be accepted by F&SF because it was not a specialist sf magazine. At the end of the 1950s Kingsley Amis described it as "the most highbrow" of the science fiction magazines, and Gary K. Wolfe later said that F&SF, along with Galaxy, "defined the tenor" of the 1950s. In 1966, Judith Merril argued that it was Boucher and McComas who made a place in the genre for writers such as Charles Beaumont, Mildred Clingerman, Edgar Pangborn, and many others who, in her opinion, had "virtually stopped writing until the necessary new magazine came along".

In 2007, Ashley commented that F&SF had been "the most consistently enjoyable magazine of the last 50 years". In his view, a key reason for the magazine's appeal was that its roots were in the literary tradition, with Lawrence Spivak, its first publisher, the inheritor of H.L. Mencken's American Mercury, which had been successful and widely respected as a literary review. Unlike most of its competitors, F&SF had no connection to the pulp magazine era, and its editors had always intended to appeal to readers of books, rather than of magazines. Ashley also cites F&SF's broad editorial policy, which allowed the magazine to carry a wider range of fiction than its competitors. In 2014 Gary Westfahl praised the "creative editors of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Gardner Dozois ... and Gordon Van Gelder", but added that "such editors were no longer the most important figures in the field".

As of March 2017, the editorial succession is as follows:

Anthony Boucher & J. Francis McComas, Fall 1949 - August 1954

Anthony Boucher, September 1954 - August 1958

Robert P. Mills, September 1958 - March 1962

Avram Davidson, April 1962 - November 1964

Joseph W. Ferman, December 1964 - December 1965

Edward L. Ferman, January 1966 - June 1991

Kristine Kathryn Rusch, July 1991 - May 1997

Gordon Van Gelder, June 1997 - January 2015

Charles Coleman Finlay, March/April 2015 - January 2021

Sheree Renée Thomas, March/April 2021 - present.

The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy; with the second issue the title switched to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It has been in digest format since the beginning.

The publisher was initially Fantasy House, a subsidiary of Mercury Press; from March 1958 the publisher was listed as Mercury Press instead. Since February 2001 the publisher has been Van Gelder's Spilogale, Inc.

The following table lists F&SF's prices over the years. When Joseph Ferman announced the price change in the February 1959 issue, his justification for the increase was that "during the past ten years...paper costs have gone up by 38%, composition, printing, binding and handling costs have gone up by 32%, postages costs have gone up from 33% to 60%, and various other costs have risen as much or more".

In 1981, Martin H. Greenberg edited a hardcover facsimile edition of the April 1965 issue of F&SF, with the addition of an introduction by Edward Ferman, and memoirs by the authors whose work appeared in the issue. The book was published by Southern Illinois University Press.

F&SF has had multiple foreign editions, including:

Argentina. Minotauro (September 1964 - June 1968), edited by Francisco Porrúa under the alias Ricardo Gosseyn, and published by Ediciones Minotauro, Buenos Aires. Ten issues. The full title was Minotauro fantasía y ciencia-ficción. Minotauro did not reprint individual issues of F&SF; instead each issue was filled with stories selected from various issues of F&SF. Also La revista de ciencia ficción y fantasía (October 1976 - February 1977), edited by Marcial Souto and published by Ediciones Orión. Three issues. This was primarily a reprint edition of F&SF but also published some original material.

Australia. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (November 1954 - August 1958), published by Consolidated Press as a saddle-stapled digest. 14 issues. The first six issues were 128 pages long, the next 4 were 112 pages, and the last four were 96 pages. It was priced at 2/- throughout. The contents were selected from the US magazine but the Australian issues did not correspond to individual issues of the original.

Brazil. Galáxia 2000 (first issue January 1968), edited by Mario Camarinha, and published by Ediçōes O Cruzeiro. Four or five issues. This contains reprints from not only the US edition of F&SF, but also from the French, Italian and Argentinian versions. This was followed in 1970 by another Magazine de Ficçāo Cientifica, which appeared in April 1970. The editor was initially Jerônymo Monteiro; he died after two issues and was succeeded by his daughter, Theresa Monteiro. The publisher was Revista do Globo. The magazine ran from April 1970 to November 1971, publishing a total of 20 issues, each containing a story by a local writer along with the reprinted material.

France. (October 1953 - February 1990), edited by Alain Dorémieux for most of its existence. 412 issues. Fiction included original French stories as well as translations from the English version of the magazine, and occasionally these French stories subsequently appeared in F&SF, translated into English. One example is "Les Premiers jour de mai" by Claude Veillot, which appeared in Fiction in May 1960 and then as "The First Days of May" in F&SF in December 1961, translated by Damon Knight. Since 2005 it has been issued twice a year as a magazine/anthology series.

Germany. A series of anthologies titled Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction began appearing in Germany in 1963, published by Heyne, and lasted until issue 101, which appeared in 2000. These contained stories selected from F&SF. The editor was Charlotte Winheller for issues 1-9; Walter Ernsting for issues 10-14; Wulf H. Bergner for issues 15-42; Manfred Kluge for issues 43-63; and Ronald M. Hahn thereafter. The full title of the publication was initially "Eine Auswahl der besten SF-Stories aus The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction"; later titles include "Die besten SF-Stories aus The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" and "Die besten Stories aus The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction".

Israel. Fantasia 2000 (December 1978 - 1984), edited by Aharon Hauptman and Gabi Peleg; published by A. Tene for the first 15 issues, and thereafter by Hyperion. 44 issues. Most of Fantasia 2000's contents were translations of material that had originally appeared in F&SF, along with some original stories by Israelis. It included translations of Asimov's science column, and also included departments that did not originate in F&SF, such as a letters page and non-fiction articles.

Italy. Fantascienza (November 1954 - May 1955), edited by Livio Garzanti, published by Garzanti e i Fratelli Treves. 7 issues. Reprints of issues of F&SF. Also Fantasia & Fantascienza (December 1962 - October 1963), edited by G. Jori, published by Minerva Editrice. 10 monthly issues, omitting May 1963. A reprint of F&SF, but it included some original material as well. Another series of reprints was published by Elara from 2013 to 2017, for a total of 17 issues with irregular periodicity.

Japan. SF Magazine (February 1960 - current as of 2017), edited by (among others) Masami Fukushima, Ryozo Nagashima, and Imaoka Kiyoshi. This began as a reprint edition of F&SF, but soon began printing more original fiction, and as of 2016 is the leading Japanese science fiction magazine, publishing both original material and stories reprinted from a variety of sources.

Mexico. Ciencia y Fantasía (September 1955 - December 1957), editor unknown, published by Novaro-México, S.A. 14 issues. Reprinted from F&SF by selecting stories from different issues of the original magazine.

Norway. (1971-1979), edited by Terje Wanberg, Øyvind Myhre, Per G. Olson, and Johannes H. Berg, published by Stowa Forlag. 34 issues. Initially titled Science Fiction-Magasinet, it began by reprinting from F&SF; from the fourth issue it began to feature new material.

Sweden. Jules Verne Magasinet (1969-2013), edited and published by Bertil Falk (1969-1971); edited by Sam Lundwall (1972-2013) and published by Askild & Kärnekull (1972), Delta (1973-1983), and Sam J Lundwall Fakta & Fantasi (1983-2010). Starting with the Askild & Kärnekull issues, and until at least the mid-1980s, this contained a large proportion of reprints from F&SF, along with some original material from other sources.

United Kingdom. Two series, both titled The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The first series was published by Mellifont Press, and ran from October 1953 to September 1954, in digest format, with 128 pages, priced at 1/6. The contents were taken from the U.S. magazine, but the UK issues did not directly correspond to individual U.S. issues. The second series was published by Atlas Publishing & Distributing from December 1959 to June 1964, in digest format. All issues were 128 pages except for January 1961 through November 1961 and March 1962 through June 1964, which were 112 pages. The price was 2/- from until November 1961, and 2/6 from December 1961 until the end of the run. As with the first series the reprint issues did not exactly correspond to individual U.S. issues. After the second series ended, some additional material from the U.S. issues was reprinted in the UK edition of Venture Science Fiction.

Amis, Kingsley (1961) [1960]. New Maps of Hell. New York: Ballantine.

Ashley, Mike (1997). "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction". In Clute, John; Grant, John (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 609-611. ISBN 0-312-15897-1.

Ashley, Mike (2005). Transformations:The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-779-4.

Ashley, Mike (2007). Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1970 to 1980. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-84631-003-4.

Atheling, Jr., William (1967) [1964]. The Issue at Hand. Chicago: Advent. OCLC 10224241.

Carter, Paul A. (1977). The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04211-6.

Clarke, Arthur C. (2002). Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-19893-0.

de Camp, L. Sprague (1953). Science-Fiction Handbook: The Writing of Imaginative Fiction. New York: Hermitage House. OCLC 559803608.

del Rey, Lester (1979). The World of Science Fiction: 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 0-345-25452-X.

Dolman, Everett Carl (1997). "Military, Democracy, and the State in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers". In Hassler, Donald M.; Wilcox, Clyde (eds.). Political Science Fiction. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1-57003-113-4.

Grant, John (1997). "King, Stephen". In Clute, John; Grant, John (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 537-539. ISBN 0-312-15897-1.

Hardy, David (1978). "Art & Artists". In Holdstock, Robert (ed.). Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. London: Octopus Books. pp. 122-141. ISBN 0-7064-0756-3.

Holmberg, John-Henry; Lundwall, Sam (1985). "Sweden". In Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike (eds.). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 895-897. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.

Priest, Christopher (1978). "Art & Artists". In Holdstock, Robert (ed.). Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. London: Octopus Books. pp. 162-173. ISBN 0-7064-0756-3.

Rottensteiner, Franz; Luserke, Uwe (1985). "Germany". In Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike (eds.). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 862-870. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction - Wikipedia

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (usually referred to as F&SF ) is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Fantasy House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J.

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4. genre and form of the narrative worksheet

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The story is written in the form of an internal "diary" in broken English kept by what the reader presumes is a deformed child (gender unspecified) chained in the basement by its violently abusive parents (the story makes it clear that the man and woman who have imprisoned the child are its biological parents when the child recalls the man commenting about how, in stark contrast to the child, "Mother [is] so pretty and me decent[-looking] enough."). The child-narrator can sometimes pull its chain from the wall and observe the outside world through the basement window. On one occasion it even manages to sneak upstairs, although it has difficulty because its body drips green fluid that causes its feet to stick to the stairs. It eavesdrops on a dinner party but is discovered by its parents, returned to the basement, and violently beaten. On another occasion it climbs to a small window and observes a little girl (possibly its "normal" sister, who is apparently unaware of the chained child's existence), playing with other little girls and boys, whom the narrator, having no concept of ordinary childhood, can only describe as "little mothers" and "little fathers". One of the boys sees the child at the window, and it is again beaten as a result. In a final incident, the girl brings her pet cat (which the chained child can only describe as a creature with "pointy ears") into the basement. The chained child hides from them in a coal bin, but when the cat discovers the child and hisses at it, the child crushes the cat to death.

The story ends with the child-narrator, again being beaten, knocking a stick from its father's hands, which sends the suddenly frightened man fleeing upstairs. The child resolves that if its parents abuse it again, it will turn violent, as it had once before, noting that it ran along the walls and hung down "with all [its] legs", revealing that the child is far more deformed than the reader may have presumed, and in fact an actual " monster".

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“Born of Man and Woman” is a science fiction short story by American writer Richard Matheson, originally published in the July 1950 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was his first professional sale, written when he was twenty-two years old. It became the title piece in Mathes…

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Noora Melodie

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Julia,faustine,alaïs,marion

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Julia,faustine,alaïs,marion

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Lilli, Louisa & Léonore

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Maxime bedex audio

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Nesrine Hakiri

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Nourane ben dhaou

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Record your opinion about the short story Born of Man and Woman Post it onto the padlet