Galilean Science Fiction Society
The Galilean Science Fiction Society was an international sf club of the early 1950s.
Science Fantasy News reported in March 1952 that Ken Potter was trying to contact the "Galilean Society" and wondered if anybody knew anything about it. The Society had in fact been announced by Shirley Marriott in a letter published in the November 1951 issue (15) of the UK prozine Authentic Science Fiction. Marriott said:
In America an STF society was formed for fans under eighteen, and we have now started up a section in Britain. It is the "Galilean Science Fiction Society" and all interested should contact me.
Authentic gave no details of how to contact Marriott beyond that she lived in Bournemouth and so presumably interested parties would write to the magazine itself.
More details appeared in the May 1952 issue of Authentic (21) in an uncredited guide to "British Fandom" where its scope was described as:
... for fans under eighteen. The idea is an "exchange of books, magazines, letters, and anything else, between British and American junior fans".
This time, Marriott's full address was included.
The club was listed (as 'The Galilean Society') in the Operation Fantast Handbook for 1953. It's unclear who else was ever involved on either side of the Atlantic.
The British Teenage Fantasy and Science Fiction Society, later known as the Junior Fanatics, existed at the same time and with a similar remit. They appear to have been more successful. An article in an Operation Fantast newsletter of February 1953 said that the Junior Fanatics and the Galileans had combined.
| Club | 1951—1953 |
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