H. C. Koenig

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Nicknamed Heck, Koenig was a New York fan in the 1930s and 40s and was well-known enough to be named in The Battle That Ended the Century. He had been around long enough that he had read All-Story and Argosy before they combined in 1920.

He was a member of the Lovecraft circle, but remained a fan and collected fanzines. When fans visited New York in the earlier days, Koenig and John W. Campbell used to toss a coin: the loser played host. He was a charter member of The National Fantasy Fan Federation in 1941.

He published The Reader and Collector for FAPA. Koenig's secretary did most of the work of publication. Koenig worked as an electrical engineer for Electrical Testing Laboratories, in New York,. He would write "scathing comments on inane professional writing and stupid fannish opinions", and then turn the manuscript over to his secretary and let her do all the rest. Harry Warner reports that "Koenig was celebrated for his diligent campaign against prozine stories in which characters "hissed" statements that contained no sibilants."

Koenig collected first editions (too expensive a hobby for most fans at the time) and used his office to store some of his fantasy collection. He also liked to restore neglected authors to favor. William Hope Hodgson was his biggest project and he persuaded Lovecraft to include him Supernatural Horror in Literature, persuaded Famous Fantastic Mysteries to reprint Hodgson stories, and helped convince Arkham House to publish Hodgson. He published articles on him in The Fantasy Fan and The Phantagraph as well as publishing an entire issue of The Reader and Collector to him in 1944.

A profile by Jon D. Swartz of Koenig as a founding member of The National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F) appeared in September 2017 issue National Fantasy Fan.


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