EVANS, Bill

   Working name of US chemist and writer William Harrington Evans (1921-1985) for his sf studies, which began with bibliographical and other work in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly in The Fanzine Index, a journal he published with Bob Pavlat through 1952, and which was later assembled into a single volume, Fanzine Index: Listing Most Fanzines from the Beginning through 1952, including Titles, Editors' Names, and Data on Each Issue (1965). With Francis T. Laney he published the early Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937): A Tentative Bibliography (1943 chap). BE's work in the sf field culminated in an extensive introduction to E.E. "Doc" SMITH, The Universes of E.E. Smith (1966), on which he collaborated with Ron ELLIK. Most of the book is a concordance of themes and characters, though there is some critical content. BE did the Skylark series, Ellik the Lensman books.

   JC