Donald A. Wollheim

Name:	Donald A. Wollheim
Also Known As:	Don Wollheim, Daw
Occupation:	editor, publisher
Medium:	fiction
Works:
Official Website(s):
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On Fanlore:	Related pages

Donald A. Wollheim (1914-1990) was a science fiction fan, fanzine editor, and professional editor and publisher. He founded the Fantasy Amateur Press Association in 1937, the Futurians science fiction club in 1938, and the publishing company DAW Books in 1971. He was also one of the group of Futarians barred from the 1939 Worldcon (aka The Great Exclusion Act).

He married fellow Futurian Elise Balter. See Wikipedia for more.

See also Donald A. Wollheim - Fancyclopedia 3, ^{Archived version}.

Conflicts

Wollheim was involved in a number of feuds during his time in fandom. He was often personally disliked even by those who shared his politics or were on good terms with other members of the Futurians. He was featured as a minor villain in The Convention of 1960, a humorous story written in 1939 (post-Worldcon) by Milton A. Rothman, who had some leftist politics himself and was friends with Robert A. W. Lowndes. A 1938 story by William S. Sykora ("The Thousandth Raid") had modeled some characters after science fiction notables, including John B. Michel as "John the Silent" and Wollheim as "Don Magong". The story was most likely written before the Wollheim-Sykora feud, but the depiction was immediately recognized by reader Willis Conover, who wrote to Fantascience Digest to identify the character as "Don the Terrible": "Who else but Wollheim?"

In 1935, he banded a group of science fiction authors together against Hugo Gernsback's Wonder Stories, charging Wonder Stories with failing to pay for manuscripts.

The most active, most widely known, and most heartily disliked member of the fan clientele today is Donald A. Wollheim, whose articles on the more personal phases of fantasy fiction haven been read by every patron of the amateur press, Woth a boldness that is jarring in its lack of consideration for the niceties of convention, Wollheim has attacked every visible weakness in the construction of the science fiction union. Totally uninfluenced by the public's wavering trend of thought, he has pounced upon flaw after flaw, followed each trail of imperfection to its core, and finally scorched it verbally with the famous Wollheim super-blast of accusation, invective, and sarcasm.

Not always verbally alone. Several years ago he led a dozen writers against the corrup Gernsback organization, which had an unpleasant habit of refusing to pay for the material it accepted. The writers managed to obtain payment in part; Wollheim and two other fansparticipating in the movement were expelled from the Science Fiction League, semi-commercial organization controlled by the Gersnback Wonder Stories, on necessarily vague and inaccurate charges; and eventually Gernsback went into inevitable bankruptcy and failed, selling Wonder Stories' title rights to the Thrilling Fiction Unit of Standard Magazines.

The Gernsback organization would have failed even had Wollheim and his associates not staged the notable rebellion, but certainly not so soon as it did; and those writers who did not collect their due would have lost it completely if the indignant Wollheim had not banded them as a group unit and brought the case into a court of law.

Surely Donald Wollheim has his faults; and he is aware of them and quick to admit that he often exaggerates to the point of distortion, that he searches for trouble when none comes to him, and that he leaves superfluous praiase for the most part to other critics. But he always takes the side that he sincerely believes to be right; and he has the courage of his own convictions, even if he does arousemuch ill-feeling among certain divisions of fandom with the extremely frank exploitation of his beliefs.

But--unrecognized? unaccepted? In 1937 the fan group, acting thru the Oklahoma Institute of Private Opinion, elected him the world's leading fantasy enthusiast.

And even his enemies, if questioned directly, would admit that a fan world without Wollheim would be drab and sterile.

Willis Conover: Looking Around Fantascience Digest #3 pg. 12 (March-April 1938)

According to Sam Moskowitz, one of Wollheim's archenemies, Wollheim had chosen Wonder Stories at random; Moskowitz claimed other publications were equally late about paying their authors. He said that contrary to popular opinion at the time, John B. Michel and William S. Sykora hadn't been involved in Wollheim's campaign against Wonder Stories and the Science Fiction League, but being lumped in with Wollheim and expelled from the Science Fiction League made them into his firm allies against the SFL. Sykora and Wollheim were allies for a time in several other minor feuds, but they came into conflict that destroyed both the International Scientific Association and the Queens Science Fiction League.

Sykora now allied himself with James V. Taurasi and Sam Moskowitz as the Triumvirs of New Fandom and the new Queens Science Fiction League. They would remain Wollheim's enemies from then on. After the Great Exclusion Act in 1939, Wollheim was vociferous in his own defense and that of the other Futurians. Robert A. W. Lowndes was his most vocal defender among the Futurians. When Sykora faded out of active fandom, Moskowitz succeeded him as their primary enemy.

In 1939, Wollheim had an article printed in Fantascience Digest in which he stated that publishers Street & Smith were in financial difficulties. A terse letter from Street & Smith appeared in Fantascience Digest #12, threatening a libel case. Editor Robert A. Madle retracted the statement and apologized. James V. Taurasi's Fantasy-News pounced, and Wollheim threatened Fantasy-News with a libel case himself over accusations that he was a member of the Communist Party.

My, my — what won't Wollheim try next? Now he's going to be a prophet. A mighty dismal one and one who regrets making a certain statement about S&S by this time, I bethcha my boots.....

Sam Moskowitz, letter printed in Fantascience Digest #12 pg. 39 (January 1940)

After The Great Exclusion Act, public opinion began to shift on Wollheim as the Triumvirs (Sykora especially) were now seen as the primary fandom troublemakers:

For certainly there are few men whose thought streams could compare in interest, psychologically, with that of Don's now. It was only three of four years ago that he was the most hated man in the entire fan world. His guts were as cordially detested and cursed, as seldom any single set of guts have been hated before. New Fandom was riding high, and Sykora was everybody's sweet Willyum. Don loathed Willie with all the consuming loathing that only former friendship can beget. The sentiment, it is hardly necessary to point out, was heartily reciprocated in kind.

The tide came in and it was a rip-tide. When it went out the Unholy Three went with it. Now Wollheim is getting along nicely---a status that may change with the coming FAPA elections--with just about everybody; and Sykora, because of his stupid, childish pettiness, and for other reasons not so worthy of repetition, has become fandom's pariah, the untouchable, the horrible example. Moskowitz is regarded simply as a not-too-bad guy who got in with a rotten crowd; Taurasi as just a garden-variety dope, born to be a damn fool, but with no native viciousness. But Sykora---! Hitler is in a better psoition than Will---there are a few yaps who actually like Adolf!

The bitterness of those early years, there can be no coubt, has become a part of Wollheim's character, along with secretiveness, and a vitriolic tongue. Acquired traits. Evidence is not lacking, on the other hand, that this latter does not apply to Sykora; it would seem that universal dislike merely brought out into the light concealed innate character---or lack of it.

Joe Gilbert: "Slan!-der". Fanfare #7 pp. 10-11, Aug. 1941.

Wollheim would later feud with the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, which had publicly supported the Futurians after the Great Exclusion Act.

Politics

Beginning in the 1930s, Wollheim identified as a Communist. In 1938 he was strongly opposed to the isolationist movement in the United States and United Kingdom. (See In Defense of Michelism). By late 1939, though, he was vehemently against to the United States entering World War II, as he felt the war would lead to an economic depression that would be bad for science fiction. However, he predicted that if "the confused state of the world" improved, it would also be bad for science fiction, since fewer people would be seeking escapism.

1. Economic trends. The state of the nation economically (itself dependent on the state of the world) determines the state of the publishers on whom all pro stf depends. If depression or war-panic should deepen in the next years, the financial state of the publishers will act adversly to stf. Less money, less stf, and poorer quality. Likewise fans will not afford fan mags or letters as previous. If the trend is reverse, the effect is reverse.

2. Psychological trends resulting from the economic. A professor speaking at the A.A. for the Ad. of Sc. in Canada a few months ago state that the growth of fantasy such as Buck Rogers and stf stories was due to the depression and confused state of the world. More people seek to escape through fantasy-reading. Hence boom of stf. (Proof was given by gullability of public in HGWellscare last Sunday to believe in Martian invasion!) ....

Naturally if depression and panics clear up, stf reading declines, mag prosperity or not. If it continues desire for stf grows but counterbalanced by fall in pocket money. Inevitable contradictions of Capitalism (see Das Kapital).

Wollheim in letterzine Voice of the Imagi-Nation issue 1, page 8 (January 1939)

If America gets into this war (and we've got no business there), it will be the end of science-fiction as we know it. Let's keep our heads. Let's KEEP AMERICA OUT OF WAR!

Wollheim in Voice of the Imagi-Nation issue 4, page 11 (December 1939)

Fanworks

Zines

• Science Fiction Progress

Meta Essays

• The First Side - The True Side, Science Fiction Collector,
• Phantagraphy, The Phantagraph #33 (1941)