BOUCHER, Anthony

   Generally used pseudonym of US editor and writer William Anthony Parker White (1911-1968), who began to publish stories of genre interest with "Snulbug" for UNKNOWN in 1941; he soon became a regular contributor to this magazine and to ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION. Most of his 1940s tales were humorous in approach (HUMOUR); many are included in The Compleat Werewolf (coll 1969), although Far and Away (coll 1955) provides a better sense of his range. A notable TIME-TRAVEL story is "Barrier" (1942). AB also used the pseudonym H.H. Holmes, publishing under this name the non-sf detection Rocket to the Morgue (1942), in which several sf authors, thinly disguised, appear in RECURSIVE roles; he went on to write several more detective novels. In 1949 he became founding editor, with J. Francis MCCOMAS, of The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION , which from its inception showed a more sophisticated literary outlook than any previous sf magazine, an accomplishment celebrated in The Eureka Years: Boucher and McComas's The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1949-54 (anth 1982) ed Annette Peltz McComas (1911-1994). After McComas left, AB was sole editor from 1954 until his retirement, through ill health, in 1958; he won the HUGO for Best Professional Magazine for the years 1957 and 1958. AB occasionally published verse in FSF under the pseudonym Herman W. Mudgett. (Mudgett was the real name and Holmes the nom de guerre of the USA's first convicted serial murderer, hanged in 1896 after torture-murdering at least 27, possibly 200, young women.) AB wrote little sf after 1952. "The Quest for Saint Aquin" (1951), on a theme of RELIGION, is generally considered his best sf work. He was also a distinguished book reviewer, writing sf columns for both the New York Times (as AB) and the New York Herald Tribune (as Holmes); and he was influential in gaining for sf a certain measure of respectability. He edited an annual anthology of stories from FSF, beginning with The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction (anth 1952) with J. Francis McComas; he also produced the notable 2-vol A Treasury of Great Science Fiction (anth 1959). An able and perceptive editor, AB did much to help raise the literary standards of sf in the 1950s.

   MJE

   Other works: Exeunt Murderers: The Best Mystery Stories of Anthony Boucher (coll 1983), with bibliography; Anthony Boucher (omni 1984 UK), collecting 4 of AB's detective novels, including Rocket to the Morgue, with intro by David LANGFORD.As Editor: Remaining volumes of the Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction sequence were The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Second Series (anth 1953) and Third Series (anth 1954), both with J. Francis McComas, Fourth Series (anth 1955), Fifth Series (anth 1956), Sixth Series (anth 1957), Seventh Series (anth 1958) and Eighth Series (anth 1959).

   About the author: A Boucher Bibliography (1969 chap) by J.R. Christopher, D.W. Dickensheet and R.E. Briney, bound with A Boucher Portrait (anth 1969 chap) ed Lenore Glen Offord.

   See also: EC COMICS; GODS AND DEMONS; LINGUISTICS; ROBOTS.