DIKTY, T(haddeus Maxim) Eugene

(1920-1991)

   US editor and publisher, married from 1953 to Julian MAY, about whose work he compiled The Work of Julian May: An Annotated Bibliography \& Guide (1985) with R. REGINALD. An early sf fan, TED started an sf checklist on index cards with the collector Frederick Shoyer in 1939, but the cards were lost in WWII. After the war, with Erle Korshak and Mark Reinsberg, he became a bookseller and passed the partially reassembled checklist on to Everett F. BLEILER, who used it to compile The Checklist of Fantastic Literature (1948) - the first comprehensive BIBLIOGRAPHY in the sf field - which TED and Korshak founded SHASTA PUBLISHERS to put into print. TED was also associated with the setting-up of the publishers Carcosa House. With Bleiler, TED edited an annual ANTHOLOGY series - the first "year's-best" series to appear in the field: The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1949 (anth 1949) and The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1950 (anth 1950; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories 1951 UK), both assembled as Science Fiction Omnibus (omni 1952); The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1951 (anth 1951; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories, Second Series 1952 UK; further cut vt The Mindworm 1967 UK); The Best Science-Fiction Stories, 1952 (anth 1952; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories, Third Series 1953 UK); The Best Science-Fiction Stories, 1953 (anth 1953; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories, Fourth Series 1955 UK); The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1954 (anth 1954; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories, Fifth Series 1956 UK). Frontiers in Space (anth 1955) contains a selection from the second, third and fourth volumes. A second series, Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, presented a selection of longer stories: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1952 (anth 1952; cut vt Year's Best Science Fiction Novels 1953 UK), 1953 (anth 1953; cut vt Category Phoenix 1955 UK) and 1954 (anth 1954; cut vt Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, Second Series 1955 UK). Together they also edited Imagination Unlimited (anth 1952; cut vt Men of Space and Time 1953 UK), which contains stories on each of 15 sciences.After the collaboration with Bleiler ended, TED went on to produce three further "best" volumes as sole editor: The Best Science-Fiction Stories and Novels, 1955 (anth 1955; cut vt 5 Tales from Tomorrow 1957), The Best Science-Fiction Stories and Novels, 1956 (anth 1956; cut vt 6 from Worlds Beyond 1958) and The Best Science-Fiction Stories and Novels, Ninth Series (anth 1958). He also edited Every Boy's Book of Outer Space Stories (anth 1960) and two theme anthologies about MARS and the MOON: Great Science Fiction about Mars (anth 1966) and Great Science Fiction Stories about the Moon (anth 1967).In the 1950s, after Shasta had collapsed in ignominy, TED formed Publication Associates with Julian May, and worked closely with her on various projects for the rest of his life, acting as her agent and editor on all her mature work. In 1972, with Darrell C. Richardson, he founded and, with the added help of Robert E. WEINBERG, ran FAX COLLECTOR'S EDITIONS, a publishing enterprise aimed at reprinting material, often in facsimile, from old magazines; at about the same time (though its first title did not appear until 1976), and also with Weinberg (who dropped out after a year), he founded STARMONT HOUSE to produce monographs on individual sf writers, along with some bibliographies and fiction, anonymously editing for the firm one anthology, Worlds Within Worlds: Four Classic Argosy Tales of Science Fiction (anth 1991). Two of his and Julian May's children carried on with the firm after his death.

   JC/MJE

   See also: SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS.