Manly Wade Wellman

Manly Wade Wellman was an American writer. While his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, Wellman is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales, and for his fantasy and horror stories set in theAppalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region. Karl Edward Wagner referred to him as "the dean of fantasy writers." Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction. Wellman was a long-time resident of North Carolina. He received many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award. Three of Wellman's most famous recurring protagonists are named John: John, aka John the Balladeer, aka "Silver John", a wandering backwoods minstrel with a silver-stringed guitar; the elderly "occult detective" Judge Pursuivant; and John Thunstone, also an occult investigator. Wellman was born in the village of Kamundongo in Portuguese West Africa (now Angola), where his father was stationed as a medical officer. He spoke the native dialect before he learned English, and became an adopted son of a powerful chief whose vision Dr Wellman restored. As a small child, Manly twice visited London, where the family stayed in Torrington Square (obliterated during the Battle of Britain). When still a young boy, his family moved to the United States, where he attended school in Washington DC, prep school in Salt Lake City, college at Wichita Municipal University (now Wichita State University) in Kansas. After graduating from Wichita State with his BA in English in 1926, he went on to receive a Bachelor of Lawsdegree from Columbia Law School. A distinguished football player, he received little encouragement from either family or teachers with his plans to become a writer. An early story, "Back to the Beast", resulted in one teacher remarking "Your work is impossible!" Yet this same story became his first professional sale when editor Farnsworth Wright bought it and published it in Weird Tales (November 1927).