According to Robert Silverberg, Donald Wollheim was "one of the most significant figures in 20th century American science fiction publishing." He goes on: "A plausible case could be made that he was
the most significant figure ... responsible in large measure for the development of the science fiction paperback, the science fiction anthology, and the whole post-Tolkien boom in fantasy fiction."
Wollheim edited the first science fiction anthology to be mass-market published,
The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (1943). It was also the first book containing the words "science fiction" in the title. It included work by Robert A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, T. S. Stribling, Stephen Vincent Benét, Ambrose Bierce, and H. G. Wells. Shortly before World War II, he edited two of the earliest periodicals devoted entirely to science fiction,
Stirring Science Stories and
Cosmic Stories. In 1945 he edited the first hardcover anthology from a major publisher and the first sf omnibus,
The Viking Portable Novels of Science. He also edited the first anthology of original sf,
The Girl With the Hungry Eyes (1947), although there is evidence that this last was originally intended to be the first issue of a new magazine. Between 1947 and 1951 he was the editor at the pioneering paperback publisher Avon Books, where he made available highly affordable editions of the works of A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, and C. S. Lewis'
Silent Planet space trilogy, bringing these previously little known authors a wide readership. During this period, he also edited the influential Avon Fantasy Reader for eighteen ssues, and the Avon Science Fiction Reader for three. Most of the stories these periodicals contained were reprints, but a few were originals.
In 1952, he left Avon to work for A. A. Wyn at the Ace Magazine Company and spearhead a new paperback book list, Ace Books. In 1953 he introduced science fiction to the Ace lineup, and for 20 years as editor-in-chief was responsible for their multi-genre list and, most important to him, their renowned sf list. Wollheim invented the
Ace Doubles series which consisted of pairs of books, usually by different authors, bound back-to-back with two "front" covers. Because these paired books had to fit a fixed total page length, one or both were usually abridged to fit, and Wollheim often made other editorial alterations ... as witness the differences between Poul Anderson's Ace novel
War of the Wing-Men and its definitive revised edition,
The Man Who Counts. Among the authors who made their paperback debuts in Ace doubles were Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Leigh Brackett, Ursula K. Le Guin, and John Brunner. William S. Burroughs' first book,
Junkie, was published as an Ace double. Wollheim also developed, or helped develop, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Robert Silverberg, Avram Davidson, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Thomas Burnett Swann, Jack Vance, and Roger Zelazny, among others. While at Ace, along with co-editor Terry Carr, he began an annual anthology series,
The World's Best Science Fiction, the first collection of what he and his fellow editor considered to be the best of the prior year's short stories, whether from magazine, hardcover, paperback collections, or other anthologies.
In the early 1960s, Ace reintroduced Edgar Rice Burroughs' work, which had long been out of print, and in 1965, Ace bought the paperback rights to Dune. (Herbert's title worried Wollheim, who feared it would be mistaken for a western.) Eventually, Ace introduced single paperback books and became one of the preeminent genre publishers. Ace and Ballantine dominated sf in the 60s and built the genre by publishing original material instead of merely reprints.
There was a time when no paperback publisher would publish fantasy. It was believed that there was no public for fantasy and that it wouldn't sell. Then Wollheim changed everything when he brought out an unauthorized paperback edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings in three volumes ... the first mass-market paperback edition of Tolkien's epic. In a 2006 interview, Elizabeth Wollheim, his daughter, theorizes, clarifies, and remembers:
He called Professor Tolkien in 1964 and asked if he could publish Lord of the Rings as Ace paperbacks. Tolkien said he would never allow Lord of the Rings, his great work, to appear in 'so degenerate a form’ as the paperback book. Don was one of the fathers of the entire paperback industry. He'd spearheaded the Ace line, he was the originating editor-in-chief of the Avon paperback list in 1945, and I think he was hurt and took it personally. He did a little research and discovered a loophole in the copyright. Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien’s American hardcover publisher, had neglected to protect the work in the United States. So, incensed by Tolkien’s response, he realized that he could legally publish the trilogy and did. This brash act (which ultimately benefited his primary competitors as well as Tolkien) was really the Big Bang that founded the modern fantasy field, and only someone like my father could have done that. He did pay Tolkien, and he was responsible for making not only Tolkien but Ballantine Books extremely wealthy. And if he hadn’t done it, who knows when ... or if ... those books would have been published in paperback.
Tolkien had authorized a paperback edition of
The Hobbit in 1961, though that edition was never made available outside the U.K. Eventually, he supported paperback editions of
The Lord of the Rings and several of his other texts, but it is difficult to say whether he was persuaded to do so by the manifest economic wisdom evident in sales of the Ace editions. In any case, Ace was forced to cease publishing the unauthorized edition and to pay Tolkien for their sales following a grass-roots campaign by Tolkien's U.S. fans. In 1993, a court found that the copyright loophole suggested by Ace Books was incorrect and their paperback edition was found to have been a violation of copyright under U.S. law. In the
LOCUS obituary for Donald Wollheim, however, yet more detail emerges.
Houghton-Mifflin had imported sheets instead of printing their own edition, but they didn't want to sell paperback rights. Ace printed the first paperback edition and caused such a furor that Tolkien rewrote the books enough to get a new copyright, then sold them to Ballantine. The rest is history. Although Ace and Wollheim have become the villains in the Tolkien publishing gospel, it's probable that the whole Tolkien boom would not have happened if Ace hadn't published them.
In 1971, Wollheim left Ace. Frederik Pohl describes the circumstances:
Unfortunately, when Wyn died [in 1968] the company was sold to a consortium headed by a bank. . . . Few of them had any publishing experience before they found themselves running Ace. It showed. Before long, bills weren't being paid, authors' advances and royalties were delayed, budgets were cut back, and most of Donald's time was spent trying to soothe authors and agents who were indignant, and had every right to be, at the way they were treated.
Upon leaving Ace, he founded DAW Books named for his initials. DAW can claim to be the first mass market specialist science fiction and fantasy fiction publishing house. DAW issued its first four titles in April 1972. Most of the writers he'd developed at Ace went with him to DAW: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, A. Bertram Chandler, Kenneth Bulmer, Gordon R. Dickson, A. E. van Vogt, and Jack Vance. In later years, when his distributor, New American Library, threatened to withhold Thomas Burnett Swann's Biblical fantasy
How Are the Mighty Fallen (1974) because of its homosexual content, Wollheim fought vigorously against their decision. They relented.
His new discoveries included C. J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, Jennifer Roberson, Michael Shea, Ian Wallace, Tad Williams, and Celia S. Friedman. He was also able to give a number of British writers ... Michael Moorcock, E. C. Tubb, Brian Stableford, Barrington Bayley, Michael Coney ... a new American audience. He published translations of international sf as well as anthologies of translated stories,
Best From the Rest of the World. With the help of Arthur W. Saha, Wollheim also edited and published the popular "Annual World's Best Science Fiction" anthology from 1971 until his death in 1990.
Marion Zimmer Bradley refers to him as "a second father," Frederik Pohl calls him "a founder," and Robert Silverberg says he was "seriously underrated" and "one of the great shapers of science-fiction publishing in the United States." Whatever he was, Donald A. Wollheim certainly had a meaningful and lasting impact not only on science fiction and fantasy publishing but also on the publishing world in general...and in one of the great periods of modern American letters.
