Lester del Rey (photo ©Dd-b) was born on June 2, 1915, in Saratoga, Minnesota, USA. He claimed that this was a part of his full, much longer, name, provided in various versions, but his sister revealed that his real name was Leonard Kapp.

Lester del Rey’s career as a science fiction writer began in 1938 with the publication of the story “The Faithful” in the magazine “Astounding Science Fiction”. At the end of the year, followed “Helen O’Loy”, the story of the construction of a robot woman.

In the following years, Lester del Rey started writing full-time, also for magazines such as “Weird Tales” and “Unknown” which published horror and fantasy stories. He also kept on writing science fiction and in 1942 published the novella “Nerves”, which describes an accident in a nuclear power plant. It was later expanded into a novel published in 1956.

In the ’50s, Lester del Rey started writing novels of the juvenile subgenre as well with various pseudonyms, starting with “Marooned on Mars” in 1952. In those years there was also a collaboration with Frederik Pohl in 1955 that led to the publication of the novel “Preferred Risk” under the pen name Edson McCann.

Lester del Rey was one of the few who included religious themes in his stories, for example, in the novelette “For I Am a Jealous People”, in which an alien species invades the Earth having God’s support.

Also in the ’50s, Lester del Rey also started his editorial activity by directing various pulp magazines and working for book publishers. For a time he worked with Damon Knight as editor of the magazine “Science Fiction Forum”.

In the following decades, Lester del Rey continued both his editorial and writing activities. A religious theme was also included in his novel about overpopulation, “The Eleventh Commandment” (1962). Some of his novels of those years were written primarily by Paul W. Fairman.

During his life, Lester del Rey was married four times. His last wife Judy-Lynn worked with him in their editorial activity at Ballantine Books, for which the two of them created in 1977 Del Rey Books, which specialized in science fiction and fantasy. For the rest of his life, Lester del Rey devoted himself primarily to that activity and his latest novel was “Weeping May Tarry” (1978), a collaboration with Raymond F. Jones that includes again a religious theme.

In 1990, Lester del Rey received the Grand Master Award for his career achievements from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He died on May 10, 1993, leaving a mixed literary legacy ranging from great quality stories to others of much lower level but also a very important contribution to the editorial and publishing field.