Most Senior SF Writer
Who (among major writers, admittedly a vague criterion) has been writing for the longest time? And who held the record before them?
| First published | Born | Died | Who? | Span | Years on Top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1818 | 1797 | 1851 | Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley | 33 | 33 |
| 1851 | 1828 | 1905 | Jules Verne | 54 | 54 |
| 1879 | 1859 | 1930 | Arthur Conan Doyle | 51 | 25 |
| 1888 | 1866 | 1946 | H. G. Wells | 58 | 16 |
| 1912 | 1875 | 1950 | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 38 | 4 |
| 1919 | 1896 | 1975 | Murray Leinster | 56 | 25 |
| 1928 | 1908 | 2006 | Jack Williamson | 78 | 31 |
| 1937 | 1919 | 2013 | Frederik Pohl | 68 | 7 |
| 1949 | 1923 | 2020 | James Gunn | 71 | 7 |
| 1952 | 1933 | 2022 | Ron Goulart | 70 | 1 |
| Current Contenders | |||||
| 1954 | 1935 | Robert Silverberg | >68 | ||
| 1956 | 1939 | Michael Moorcock | >66 | ||
| 1957 | 1939 | Peter S. Beagle | >65 | ||
Jack Williamson held the record the longest in modern times.
Note that this list is not “Oldest Living SF Writer”, which only requires a single story and significant longevity. Here, we are looking for a career which is both long and major.
First, "major" is inevitably subjective to a degree. Early writers for magazines like Weird Tales or the mundanes who published something that was arguably SF and lived on forgotten — or never known — by fandom still qualify for "Oldest Living SF Writer." Here, we're looking for writers who had a major and continued impact on the field.
Second, there are writers who write something important, but whose writing career was relatively brief. We're looking for people with long active careers, not who were simply long-lived. To count, an active career should have spanned a majority of the time since their first published appearance. (And, yes, Mary Shelley is a bit of a dodge, since while undoubtedly a majorly influential SF writer — arguably the very first such — she doesn't have a large body of work. But no one else from that period does, either.)
Most subjective of all, is "major." Given two people who have essentially equivalent careers, where one is of significantly greater stature and influence in the field, we will pick the latter.
Anyway, this is all for fun.
For a somewhat different take, see Dean of Science Fiction. Also see: Most Senior Fan.
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