A. Langley Searles
(August 8, 1920 – May 7, 2009)
Arthur Langley Searles was a fan, bibliographer and historian of sf.
He is best known for editing the scholarly fanzine Fantasy Commentator, of which he published 28 issues between 1943 and 1953, and then resumed in 1978 through 2004. In 1996, it was nominated for the 1946 Best Fanzine Retro Hugo.
He was a member of FAPA in the 1940s, but left it after getting involved in a row over what he considered objectionable material being published and threatening to bring the fanzines to the attention of the Post Office. See the Fancyclopedia 2 article on censorship. He feuded with F. T. Laney.
He also published Devil Take the Hindmost. He was a member of The Esoteric Order of Dagon.
He attended the First Worldcon in 1939 and played for the Queens SFL team in the Softball Game.
The August 1944 issue of Futurian War Digest noted:
American fan, bibliophile & bibliographer A. Langley Searles of New York City has been deferred from the draft, thus enabling those of us collecting his bibliographical sheets to heave a sigh of relief.
He wrote for and locced many fanzines, and was active in fandom up till his death.
In mundane life, Searles was a professor of chemistry at the College of Mount Saint Vincent.
| Person | 1920—2009 |
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