Two Knapsacks

John W. Campbell graduated both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as Duke in the early 1930s. He believed that at that time there was no work for a young scientist but there was income for a new science fiction writer. To that end, he published short stories and novels in Amazing, the then-leading science fiction magazine, and Astounding, which marked him as the best science fiction writer of his time. However, his writing career essentially ended with the publication of Who Goes There?, which was published in Astounding.

Campbell soon became editor of Astounding, for which he insisted on rigorous standards: humanized characters, a rigorous scientific background, and the best writing possible, comparable to other magazines of the time. With these ideals, Campbell found and launched a whole new generation of writers, among them Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, A.E. Van Vogt, Henry Kuttner, Lester del Rey and others who collectively as well as individually produced an extraordinary body of work and legacy.

Almost all of the early science fiction masterpieces that were to be found were published in Astounding in the early 1940s. The later years were not quite as revolutionary as the first; however, this is not to say that Campbell did not make an impact: he continued to bring new work and new writers to the fore and maintain a very high literary standard throughout his tenure at the magazine. As for Campbell himself, he was regarded in his lifetime (and after) as perhaps the greatest science fiction editor of the century.