Groff Conklin

Groff Conklin (September 6, 1904 - 1968), noted anthologist born Edward Groff Conklin in Glen Ridge, NJ, September 6, 1904

From 1945 onward, Groff Conklin's name on a science fiction anthology was a guarantee of quality. Among his 40-plus anthologies were A Treasury of Science Fiction (1948), and 1965's 13 Above the Night. He and his wife, the former Lucy Tempkin, collaborated on The Supernatural Reader in 1953, a year before her death. They had married October 1st, 1937. Four years after Lucy's death, Conklin married Florence Wohlken.

Conklin edited a book column, "Galaxy's Five-Star Shelf", for Galaxy science fiction magazine, from its premiere issue in October 1950 until October, 1955.

Educated at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Colombia, Conklin drifted restlessly through a series of jobs in the 1930s and 1940s (working for several government agencies during WWII) before finding his niche as an editor. His book, The Weather-Conditioned House, published in 1958, is not science fiction but a practical discussion of the methods of weather-conditioning a house. The book was authoritative enough that it was reissued, with an update, in 1982.