Murray Leinster: The Life and Works by Billee J. Stallings & Jo-An J. Evans (2011)
Although he published many works under his own name, Will F. Jenkins (1896-1975) was best known for his Murray Leinster pseudonym under which he signed most of his science fiction stories beginning in 1919 and continuing over the span of seven decades, earning him the sobriquet "the Dean of Science Fiction." Here is a personal, loving biography written by the two youngest of his four daughters.
Will Jenkins was a legend in the writing business. the author of more than 100 novels, over 1500 short stories and articles, 14 film scripts, and hundreds of radio and television plays. In addition, he was a successful inventor -- one of his inventions, a front screen projection process that played a significant role in the making of film special effects.
Jenkins had parents with roots in Virginia, where he was born. His family line went back generations to Colonial times, and he proudly asserted that it went even further centuries back to Wales and Ireland. His connections to his Welsh ancestors was strong and it influenced the naming of his eventual home in Virginia and of his third daughter, Wenllian (which by rights should have been Gwenllian, a name that Jenkins had traced back to Colwyn of Ardudwy; it was also the name of the daughter of the last "real" Prince of Wales, Llywelyn, who had been executed by King Edward I in 1282; Jenkins told his daughter that the name was the Welsh version of William -- it wasn't). Much of Jenkins' stories of his ancestry came from family lore; it was only after his death that research showed some of that lore to be faulty.
Jenkins was the second son and he was close to his brother George. His parents had moved from Virginia to New York where Jenkins spent his early childhood. Jenkins credited Robert E. Lee for his becoming a writer. He was a student at the Charlotte Street Scholl in Norfolk, Virginia, on January 8, 1909, when the unthinkable happened -- school officials had forgotten that it was the birthday of Robert E. Lee. Realizing this gross abdication of Southern responsibility, the panicked principal rushed to all the classrooms, telling the teachers to read to their students about Lee and then to have each student write an essay about the revered general. The school superintendent came by a few days later, read some of the papers, and, impressed with young Will Jenkins' effort. sent it off to the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch as an example of the fine teaching standards at the school. A local confederate veteran was so impressed that he sent young Will $5.00, part of which Will used for a subscription to Fly: The National Aeronautics Magazine. Will had always had a keen and inquiring mind for science, and aeronautics was one of his passions. That magazine happened to offer a $5 prize for the best photograph and description of a glider made by a member, and Will sent his in, winning the $5 and appearing in print in the February 1910 issue, winning him the $5.
Will's father, a paymaster for the Norfolk and Southern Railroad, lost his job when the company went into receivership in 1910, and the family moved to New York City, and Will dropped out of school just a few months into the eighth grade. Will's father worked as an accountant and his older brother George worked as a clerk for the Prudential Insurance Company. Eventually Will went to work with his brother at Prudential and hated it. He determined to be a writer. Records are vague about Will's father from the decade of 1910-1920. He was evidently not living at home, and he eventually moved in with his daughter from his first marriage, Will's half-sister Lula. Will's basic family consisted of his mother, his brother, and himself. Will's mother. Mamie, doted on George, whom Will greatly admired, but (this is me reading between the lines) gave short shrift to Will, and he determined to move out as soon as possible.
Will's professional writing career began in 1915, when he began selling epigrams, poems, and stories to H. L. Mencken's The Smart Set. Will eventually visited the offices of the magazine, co-editor George Jean Nathan "almost fell off his chair" when he realized that the author was only seventeen years old. Mencken advised Will to keep his own name for the better markets, but to adopt a pseudonym for lesser markets. Thus was "Murray Leinster" born. Leinster's stories soon flooded the pages of Snappy Stories, Saucy Stories, and The Parisienne Monthly Magazine -- all minor magazines with links to The Smart Set.
Payment for writers was never great and Will had to keep producing to keep the wolf from the door, and that meant to expand into other markets. He began writing adventure, mystery, air, fantasy, and westerns for such markets as All-Story Weekly, Argosy, The Thrill Book, Ace-High Magazine, The Black Mask, Telling Tales, People's, and Amazing Stories. No matter what the subject, Will's stories were eminently readable and popular. "The Runaway Skyscraper," his first science fiction story and still considered a classic, appeared in the February 22, 1919 issue of Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine. In the late 1920's, Will wrote some two dozen very popular stories for Love Story magazine, as well as at least two novels, under the pseudonym Louisa Carter Lee. Despite pleas for increased payment (three times the going rate!), he refused to continue writing these tales because they made him feel uncomfortable.
Will was 23 when he first met his wife Mary, then 22, on the beach at Coney Island. "I thought she was the prettiest kid I'd ever seen." Will was totally smittened and couldn't get his niond off of her. He had written a play and had submitted to the Broadway producers the Schuberts. When it was accepted, he felt he would be secure enough to have a wife and he proposed. Only after the proposalwas accepted di he find out that the play would be delayed in being produced, if it ever was. (It wasn't.) But by then he had convinced Mary to move to his beloved Tidewater area of Virginia, Later he said, "Thank goodness she liked it." On the drive down to rural Virginia, Mary saw her first cow, and Will had to stop so she could examone it closely.
They eventually bought a run-down old Colonial home at Clay Bank in /gloucester County (across the York river from Williamsburg). Much effort was made to make it livable and the property was added to over the yers, complete with electricity and indoor plumbing. It was there that they raised their children in an diyllic rural setting, where everyon knew their neighbors, and where the house was always open to visitors and relatives. Stallings and Evans spend much time recalling their childhood there and the many traditions they grew up with.
Will Jenkins was a Southern gentleman, with all that implies -- gracious, kind, warm, and funny. He doted on his children , while pushing them intellectually. Books were everywhere in his home, and Will did his best to interest his children in the things he loved -- science and literature and enjoying the Tidewater life. He also instructed them on the secrets of writing, many of which were copied in this book. Will loved children and got long well with them; he was more awkward around teenagers, though. He converted to become a devoted Catholic, although neither he nor Mary were of that faith. One of the failings of this book is that his daughters knew some of the things that had happened in Will's life, but not the reasons; something I feel is common to many who have grown up in a family -- some things are just not talked about. Despite being of an egregious personality and being able to share the raunchiest of jokes (but only to male company), Will was also very much of a prude. This extended to his writing; sex was an area he did not touch. Many evenings were spent by the fire singing, and the holiday conga lines led by Will and Mary were well-known.
For twenty years, Will was estranged from his mother, blaming her for the death of his brother George. Although not of that faith, Mamie had found comfort and friendship at the local Christian Science Reading Room. Will (rather rashly, I fear) accused her of not getting George medical attention when he needed it, and instead of praying over him, hoping that he would be healed. Will's mother was devastated over George's death; she had kept bound copies of everything George had ever published, and none of Will's. The rift was not healed until Billee, as an adult, secretly opened correspondence with her grandmother, and eventually Will relented.
Much of the books, outside of family reminiscences, is spent on Will's science fiction career. The basic thrust was that, if there were no Murray Leinster, there would be a radically different science fiction today. Leinster created two major subsets of today's science fiction: the alternate world and the first contact. In addition, he predicted such things as the internet and personal; computers, and paved the way for a number of today's science fictional tropes. A writer would be lucky (and extremely talented) to have even two stories considered classics of their kind. Murray Leinster had dozens. And he made it seem easy.
The authors include extracts from a number of letters and articles where Jenkins/Leinster details his theories about writing and about science fiction, and they make fascinating and informative reading.
The book concludes with a reprinting of the story "A Logic Named Joe," which (in 1946!) was the first to predict the home computer and the internet, and with an article, "To Build a Robot Brain" (1954), which gives the reader a glimpse on how the author's mind worked as he developed an idea. There is also a detailed (and, alas, incomplete) bibliography of his works, and a detailed index.
This personal meoir is a loving tribute. Recommended for all Leinster fans who want a better, more personal, feel for one of their favorite authors.
Billee Stallings, born in 1928, is also the editor of Ten Unique Stories by Will F. Jenkins. Last year she self-published a book about her 10-times-great-granfather, John Jenkins: Soldier to Governor. Her sister, Jo-An J. Evans, was born in 1938, lived in London, had evidently published several articles on fashion
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