Marion Zimmer Bradley
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Marion_Zimmer_Bradley".

content
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (September 2007)
Marion Zimmer Bradley

Born June 3, 1930(1930-06-03)
Albany, NY, USA
Died September 25, 1999 (aged 69)
Berkeley, CA, USA
Pen name Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman
Occupation Novelist, Editor
Nationality United States
Genres Fantasy, Science fiction
Official website

Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.

Contents

Biography

Born on a farm in Albany, New York, during the Great Depression, she began writing in 1949 and sold her first story to Vortex in 1952. She was married to Robert Alden Bradley from October 26, 1949 until their divorce on May 19, 1964. They had a son, David Robert Bradley (1950 – 2008). During the 1950s she was introduced to the cultural and campaigning lesbian group the Daughters of Bilitis. After her divorce she married numismatist Walter H. Breen on June 3, 1964. They separated in 1979 but remained married, and continued a business relationship and lived on the same street for over a decade. They officially divorced on May 9, 1990, the year Breen was arrested on child molestation charges.1 Her first child, David R. Bradley, and brother, Paul Edwin Zimmer are published science fiction & fantasy authors in their own right. Her daughter by Breen, Moira Stern, is a professional harpist and singer.

In 1965 Bradley graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. Afterward, she moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley between 1965 and 1967. In 1966, she helped found and named the Society for Creative Anachronism and was involved in developing several local groups, including in New York after her move to Staten Island.

After suffering declining health for years, Bradley died at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a debilitating heart attack. Her ashes were scattered at Glastonbury Tor, in Somerset, England, two months later.

Literary career

Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.

Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.

In the 1970s she wrote several Tolkien fanfictions revolving around Arwen.

She created the planet of Darkover as a setting for her own series, writing a large number of Darkover stories as a solo author and later collaborating with other authors to produce Darkover anthologies, where once again she encouraged story submissions from unpublished authors. For a time, Bradley actively encouraged fan fiction within the Darkover universe, but this came to an end following a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction. The Darkover novels may be considered fantasy with science fiction overtones or science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover was a lost earth colony where psi powers had developed to an unusual degree.

In 1966, Bradley became a cofounder of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and is credited with coining the name of that group.

Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books.

Bradley was the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including males in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death.

In 2000, she was awarded the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement.

Bibliography

Novels

  • Falcons of Narabedla (1957)
  • The Door Through Space (1961)
  • Seven from the Stars (1961)
  • The Colours Of Space (1963)
  • Castle Terror (1965)
  • Souvenir of Monique (1967)
  • Bluebeard's Daughter (1968)
  • The Brass Dragon (1970)
  • In the Steps of the Master - The Sixth Sense #2 ([1973]) (based on television series The Sixth Sense, created by Anthony Lawrence)
  • The Jewel of Arwen (1974) (novelette)
  • The Parting of Arwen (1974) (novelette)
  • Can Ellen Be Saved? ([1975]) (adaptation of a teleplay by Emmett Roberts)
  • The Endless Voyage (1975)
  • Drums of Darkness (1976)
  • Ruins of Isis (1978)
  • The Catch Trap (1979)
  • The Endless Universe (1979) (rewrite of The Endless Voyage)
  • The House Between the Worlds (1980)
  • Survey Ship (1980)
  • The Colors Of Space (1983) (unabridged edition)
  • Night's Daughter (1985)
  • Warrior Woman (1987)
  • The Firebrand (1987)
  • Black Trillium (1990) (with Julian May and Andre Norton)
  • Lady of the Trillium (1995)
  • Tiger Burning Bright (1995) (with Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton)
  • The Gratitude of Kings (1997) (with Elisabeth Waters)

Short story collections

  • The Dark Intruder and Other Stories (1964)
  • The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley (1985)
  • Jamie and Other Stories (1988)
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover (Darkover collection) (1993)

Series

  • Atlantean series
    • Web of Light (1983)
    • Web of Darkness (1983)
    • The Fall of Atlantis (1987) (omnibus edition of Web of Light and Web of Darkness)
  • Survivors series(with Paul Edwin Zimmer)
    • Hunters of the Red Moon (1973)
    • The Survivors (1979)

Anthologies

  • The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine (1994)
  • The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine — Vol. II (1995) (with Elisabeth Waters)
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Worlds (1998)
  • Spells of Wonder (1989)

Novels under pen names

  • Writing under the pseudonym Lee Chapman
    • I am a Lesbian (1962)
  • Writing under the pseudonym John Dexter
    • No Adam for Eve (1966)
  • Writing under the pseudonym Miriam Gardner
    • My Sister, My Love (1963)
    • Twilight Lovers (1964)
    • The Strange Women (1967)
  • Writing under the pseudonym Morgan Ives
    • Spare Her Heaven (1963)
    • Anything Goes (1964)
    • Knives of Desire (1966)

Poems

  • The Maenads (1978)

Music

Editorial positions

Scholarly work

  • Bradley, M.Z. "Feminine equivalents of Greek Love in modern fiction". International Journal of Greek Love, Vol.1, No.1. (1965). Pages 48-58.
  • Checklist: A complete, cumulative checklist of lesbian, variant, and homosexual fiction in English (1960).
  • A Gay Bibliography (1975).
  • The Necessity for Beauty: Robert W. Chambers & the Romantic Tradition (1974)

She also contributed to The Ladder and The Mattachine Review.

See also

References

  1. ^ [Serrano, Richard A. (October 3, 1991). "Rare Coins Expert Charged With Child Molestation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 5, 2008.
  2. ^ a b Deborah J. Ross's Darkover website

External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marion Zimmer Bradley
© jGames.co.uk 2007 (some content from Wikipedia under GDL ) !-- ValueClick Media 468x60 and 728x90 Banner CODE for jgames.co.uk -->
Your Ad Here