John D. Clark

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Drury Clark (born August 15, 1907 in Fairbanks , Alaska , † July 6, 1988 in Denville , New Jersey ) was an American rocket fuel developer , chemist and science fiction fan and writer. He was partly responsible for the rediscovery of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and influenced the literary careers of L. Sprague de Camp , Fletcher Pratt and other authors.

life and career

Clark graduated from the University of Alaska and received a BS from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena , California in the 1920s. He shared a room there with L. Sprague de Camp . He received his MS from the University of Wisconsin – Madison , a Ph.D. 1934 at Stanford University . He moved to New York in the 1930s and lived in Philadelphia in 1943. In 1943 he married the soprano Mildred Baldwin. In 1962 he married Inga Stephens Pratt Clark, Fletcher Pratt's widow, and dedicated his book Ignition! (Ignition).

In 1933 he published a novel arrangement of the periodic table of the elements, which was published as an illustration in Life magazine in 1949. Clark first worked in the research department of John Wyeth & Brother in Philadelphia. From 1949 to 1970, Clark developed liquid fuels at the Naval Air Rocket Test Station in Dover , New Jersey .

His archive can be found at Virginia Tech .

Literary influence

Clark was a fan of the science fiction and fantasy of the Pulp magazine era. Friends and acquaintances of his wrote books and magazine articles, among them P. Schuyler Miller , Fletcher Pratt and L. Ron Hubbard .

Clark wrote with Miller in 1938 a description and map of the world of Conan the Barbarian in the fanzine The Hyborian Age and from then on also became a chronicler of the Conan readership. While unemployed, Clark wrote two science fiction stories in the mid-1930s, both published in 1937. He was supported by L. Sprague de Camp, who was motivated by it to start his own literary career. Clark introduced Camp to the Fletcher Pratts wargamer circle in 1939.

In 1941, he gave L. Ron Hubbard , the later founder of the sect and then booklet writer, the idea of writing the humorous fantasy novel The Case of the Friendly Corpse .

Clark's marriage in 1944 led to the founding of the Trap Door Spiders men's circle , in which Isaac Asimov and Martin Gardner took part. In 1952, Clark inspired several novels by Pratt, H. Beam Piper, and Judith Merril with a scenario for a “petrified world” .

bibliography

Short stories
  • Minus Planet (in: Astounding Stories, April 1937 )
  • Space Blister (in: Astounding Stories, August 1937 )
Non-fiction
  • A new periodic chart. In: Journal of Chemical Education. Volume 10, 1933, p. 675.
  • A modern periodic chart of chemical elements. In: Science. Volume 111, 1950, pp. 661-663.
  • with P. Schuyler Miller : A Probable Outline of Conan's Career. In: The Hyborian Age. 1938.
  • with P. Schuyler Miller: An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian. In: The Coming of Conan. 1953.
  • Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants. Rutgers University Press, 1972.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John D. Clark, 80, Rocket Fuel Developer. In: New York Times. July 9, 1988, p. 33 (obituary)
  2. ↑ a b Mildred Baldwin Bride: Opera Singer Wed to Dr. John D. Clark in Ceremony Here. In: New York Times , June 8, 1943, p. 24
personal data
SURNAME Clark, John D.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clark, John Drury (full name); Clark, Doc (pseudonym); Clark, JD (alternative spelling); Clark, Dr. John D. (alternative spelling); Clark, Dr. John Drury (alternative spelling); Clark, Doctor John D. (alternative spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist and science fiction fan
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Fairbanks , Alaska
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1988
Place of death Denville , New Jersey