Edgar Pangborn

Edgar Pangborn (1909 - 1976) was an American writer of mystery, historical and science fiction. He began music studies at Harvard University in 1924, when he was still only 15 years old and left in 1926 without graduating. After that he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, but did not graduate from that school, either. On leaving he publicly abandoned music, shifting his creative focus to writing. His first novel, a mystery called A-100: A Mystery Story, was published under the...See more

Edgar Pangborn (1909 - 1976) was an American writer of mystery, historical and science fiction. He began music studies at Harvard University in 1924, when he was still only 15 years old and left in 1926 without graduating. After that he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, but did not graduate from that school, either. On leaving he publicly abandoned music, shifting his creative focus to writing. His first novel, a mystery called A-100: A Mystery Story, was published under the pseudonym "Bruce Harrison" in 1930. It was not an auspicious or notably successful debut and showed none of the emotional or stylistic characteristics that became the hallmark of his later work. Over the next 20 years he wrote numerous stories for the pulp detective and mystery magazines, always under pseudonyms. It was not until the early 1950s that Edgar "suddenly appeared" within the science fiction and mystery fields, publishing a string of high-quality, high-profile stories under his own name in prominent magazines like Galaxy Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. His work helped to firmly establish a new "humanist" school of science fiction and inspired a subsequent generation of writers, including Peter S. Beagle and Ursula K. Le Guin, who has credited Pangborn and Theodore Sturgeon with convincing her that it was possible to write worthwhile, humanly emotional stories within science fiction and fantasy. See less