LOCKE, George (Walter)

(1936-)

   UK writer, one-time pharmacist, antiquarian bookseller and bibliographer. He began publishing sf with "The Human Seed" for Authentic in 1957, and under the name Gordon Walters published a number of sf stories in the 1960s, but no sf books; his novels, Pattern of Terror (1987) and A Spectre-Room of Fancy (1989 chap) as by Ayresome Johns, aredetective tales of "impossible crimes" and the supernatural. His most important publications have been in the BIBLIOGRAPHY of sf and fantasy; though his researches have been far-ranging, the emphasis has been on 19th-century interplanetary romances, which he annotated in Voyages inSpace: A Bibliography of Interplanetary Fiction, 1801-1914 (1975 chap). Ferret Fantasy's Christmas Annual for 1972 (1972 chap), Ferret Fantasy's Christmas Annual for 1973 (1974 chap) and Ferret Fantasy's Christmas Annual for 1974 (1975 chap), which contains inter alia short bibliographies of this material, led to the excellent Science Fiction First Editions: A Select Bibliography and Notes for the Collector (1978chap). A Spectrum of Fantasy: The Bibliography and Biography of a Collection of Fantastic Literature (1980), and A Spectrum of Fantasy II:Acquisitions to a Collection of Fantastic Literature, 1980-1993 (1994), applied the same combination of bibliographic exactitude and anecdotal commentary to a description of his own extremely large library. Many books not previously understood to merit admission to the canon of sf and fantasy were first cited in these volumes. His SMALL PRESS, Ferret Fantasy, has so far issued 15 books of sf, fantasy and mystery interest.

   JC

   Other works: Worlds Apart (anth 1972), ed, early interplanetary fiction in facsimile; At the Mountains of Murkiness and Other Parodies (anth 1973), ed anon; From an Ultimate Dim Thule (1973), a study offantasy illustrator Sidney H. Sime, and The Land of Dreams (1975), an illustrated survey of Sime; The Affair of the Lost Compression and Other Stories (anth 1975 chap); Guardians of the Lilac Moon, or The Downfall ofDakeevle the Dire (1980 chap), a tale for children; Thirty Years of Dustwrappers: 1884-1914 (1988 chap); Pearson's Weekly: A Checklist of Fiction 1890-1939 (1990).