HAMLING, William L(awrence)

(1921-)

   US writer and editor. Active as an sf fan in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he published a number of stories, the first of which, "War with Jupiter" with Mark Reinsberg, appeared in AMAZING STORIES in 1939. WLH later went to work for ZIFF-DAVIS under Raymond A. PALMER, and wasmanaging editor of AMZ and FANTASTIC ADVENTURES 1948-50. In 1951 he became editor and publisher of IMAGINATION, having bought the title from Palmer. He added a companion, IMAGINATIVE TALES, and continued both until late1958. In 1955 he started an early men's magazine, Rogue. In the late 1960s his publishing company Greenleaf Classics, which specialized in erotic novels, ran badly foul of US pornography laws for publishing an illustrated edition of a Congressional investigation of pornography, an offence for which he was imprisoned along with his co-publisher Earl Kemp (1929-), compiler of the pamphlets Who Killed Science Fiction?: AnAffectionate Autopsy (anth 1960 chap) and Why is a Fan? (anth 1961 chap). Greenleaf Classics and its associated imprints (Adult Books, Candid Reader, Companion Books, Ember Library, Idle Hour Books, Late House Library, Leisure Books, Nightstand Books, Pleasure Readers and Regency Books) published over 50 titles of sf pornography; they are listed in The Science Fiction Collector 4 (1977) ed J. Grant Thiessen and in Donald H. TUCK's The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1968, Volume 3: Miscellaneous (1982). Greenleaf published several of the early works of Harlan ELLISON.

   MJE/PN