Doc Lowndes

(September 4, 1915 – July 14, 1998)

Robert A. W. "Doc" Lowndes (pronounced LOWNDZ, one syllable) was a fan, author, and editor. He found sf with the July 1926 Amazing. He subscribed to Science Fiction Digest in 1933 and joined the SFL in 1935, organizing the Stamford, CT SFL.

“I'd already adopted the nickname ‘Doc’ in the CCC's in Maine and made it stick. I only used it in science-fiction activities; letters published in 1935 were signed ‘Doc Lowndes,’ and that was how I was known when I first began to meet other science-fiction fans in 1936,” he wrote in Outworlds 49 (April 1987, p. 1629).

He was a principal member of the Futurians (and one of the six kept out of the first Worldcon by the Exclusion Act). He later became editor of Future Science Fiction, Science Fiction Weekly, Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Quarterly, and outside the SF field, western, crime-fiction, sports-fiction, and other magazines for Columbia Publications. He also worked on the Gernsback Publications' non-fiction magazine, Sexology. After World War II, he founded Vanguard Records with James Blish.

He received the First Fandom Hall of Fame award in 1991 and was GoH at Lunacon 12, and Boskone 10.

Probably his best known fanzine is Le Vombiteur, but he also published the VAPA- and FAPAzine Agenbite of Inwit. He was a prolific user of pen names in his fannish writing, with estimates of over fifty, including Satyricus. He also wrote the "interminable" fan fiction "Trigger Talk at Green Guna". Other fanzines included Afterthoughts and Vagrant.

He is remembered by SF historians today for his book Three Faces of Science Fiction, published by the NESFA Press in 1973. He remained active in fandom until his death.

More reading:

• Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Early short biography in Who's Who in Fandom 1940, page 9.
• July, 2016 National Fantasy Fan.
• The Gernsback Days with Mike Ashley.
• “Understandings”, a fanoir, Outworlds 49 (April 1987, p. 1620).

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Afterthoughts [1945] (for VAPA)
• Agenbite of Inwit [1942–46] (for VAPA and FAPA)
• Chartreuse and Shocking Pink [1944]
• Extu [1976]
• Le Vombiteur [1938–40]
• Le Vombiteur Literaire [1938–39]
• Open Letter to All Members of FAPA [1944] (for FAPA)
• Science Fiction Weekly [1940]
• Storm Over Philadelphia [1939]
• Vagabondia [1941] (for FAPA)
• Vagrant [1938–40]
• Venal [1946]
• V-R Record Review [1945] (with James Blish)

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1956 — Philcon 1956
• 1969 — Lunacon 12
• 1973 — Boskone 10
• 1991 — First Fandom Hall of Fame

____

---

Person

1915—1998

This is a biography page. Please extend it by adding more information about the person, such as fanzines and apazines published, awards, clubs, conventions worked on, GoHships, impact on fandom, external links, anecdotes, etc. See Standards for People and The Naming of Names.