As Beth Foxwell reminds us, Anthony Boucher was born on this day in 1911. A true polymath, he went on to a distinguished career as an editor, author, and anthologist, among many other things. The Bouchercon is, of course, named for him and held in his honor. I love to recall the happy hours I spent in the stacks of the library at The University of Texas at Austin, poring over the yellowed pages of the bound issues of The New York Times Book Review, writing down the names of all the authors that Boucher had reviewed so that I could check their books out of the library or buy old paperback copies of them. Great times.
Boucher died much too young, in 1968. Though I never met him, he had a huge influence on my life.
4 comments:
Bill, wouldn't that make him 95, if only we still had him around? I was just rereading Neil Gaiman's choice of Boucher's collection THE COMPLEAT WEREWOLF AND OTHER STORIES for the first volume of HORROR: THE 100 BEST BOOKS last night...
He was one of the early prominent broadcasters on the Pacifica radio station in Berkeley, before it became the founding station of the Pacifica Network, and back when it might've been a bit dangerous to be associated with Pacifica (AB's contribution to the Creeping Red Menace was in his conducting a program devoted to opera, in which subject he was apparently expert).
Opera was one of the many things Boucher had great knowledge of. An amazing guy.
Thanks for the correction on the # of b'days, Todd. I got carried away.
Post a Comment