Robert Bloch (Author)

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Robert Bloch (1976)

Robert Albert Bloch (born April 5, 1917 in Chicago , † September 23, 1994 in Los Angeles ) was an American writer of science fiction and horror literature as well as screenplays . He wrote over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories. His book Psycho (1959), including the Hitchcock film of the same name , achieved fame .

life and work

Robert Bloch was the child of the German-Jewish immigrants Raphael "Ray" Bloch and Stella Loeb. The father worked as a cashier in a bank, the mother as a social worker. He became an avid reader early in his childhood and began reading horror magazine Weird Tales when he was ten . At fifteen, he began writing letters to the editor and came in contact with HP Lovecraft , August Derleth , Clark Ashton Smith, and E. Hoffmann Price . At seventeen he published his first stories in Weird Tales, both heavily influenced by Lovecraft: The Feast in the Abbey and The Secret in the Tomb were derived from the Cthulhu myth . Bloch quickly became one of the regular authors of the magazine. As a little joke among colleagues, he built Lovecraft into his story The Shambler from the Stars and then killed this literary character in the course of the plot. Lovecraft retaliated and killed a Robert Bloch character named "Robert Blake" in The Haunter of the Dark .

Bloch began to write for other pulp magazines , including the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories . He emancipated himself from imitating Lovecraft's style and developed his own writing style in the 1940s, often combined with carefully researched historical backgrounds - Jack the Ripper in Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, the man in the iron mask in Iron Mask, the Marquis de Sade in The Skull of the Marquis de Sade or Lizzie Borden in Lizzie Borden Took an Ax ... His macabre stories found their readership, and he made the acquaintance of other colleagues such as Fritz Leiber , Henry Kuttner and CL Moore . In 1940 he married Maria Ruth Holcombe and began working in an advertising agency to provide the young family with a steady income. In 1943 his daughter was born. He has now also written SF and crime novels for a number of magazines, a cycle of 23 humorous fantasy stories about Lefty Feep and numerous radio plays based on his own horror stories, which were broadcast under the title Stay Tuned for Terror . His first book, The Opener of the Way (1944) was a collection of short stories, followed in 1946 the first novel The silk scarf ( The Scarf ), where it was about a serial killer.

The increasing success made it possible for Robert Bloch to quit his job in the agency in 1953 and to live as a freelance author from then on. He settled in Weyauwega , Wisconsin , down and published more books, won the 1959 Hugo Award for the story That Hell-Bound Train and managed in the same year with Psycho , by Alfred Hitchcock successfully filmed in 1960, the final breakthrough. He was also able to write and sell scripts, moved to Los Angeles and worked on series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents , Boris Karloff's Thriller, Journey to the Unknown and Star Trek . For Raumschiff Enterprise Bloch wrote the episodes 7 “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (German: “The old dream”), 36 “Catspaw” (German: “The haunted castle in space”) and 43 “Wolf in the Fold” "(German:" The wolf in sheep's clothing "). In the latter episode, the author brought in his studies on the subject of "Jack the Ripper" - here the legendary criminal turns out to be an extraterrestrial being who changes body after his murders.

Bloch's wife could not stand life in the big city and obtained a divorce in 1963. The author married Eleanor Alexander the following year. He still wrote mostly short stories, but also wrote a number of novels such as American Gothic (1974). On the subject of "Jack the Ripper" he kept coming back to the novel The Night of the Ripper 1984. His autobiography Once Around the Bloch was published in 1993.

He received several awards for his work, such as the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Robert Bloch died at the age of 77 of esophageal and kidney cancer.

Awards

0000 Worldcon Special Convention Award in the category "For Fifty Years As a Science Fiction Professional"
  • 1985 First Fandom Hall of Fame Award
  • 1989 Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement
  • 1991 World Horror Grandmaster
  • 1994 Bram Stoker Award for Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorized Autobiography as best non-fiction book (Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction)
  • 1995 Bram Stoker Award for The Early Fears for Best Collection and for The Scent Of Vinegar for Best Short Novel

bibliography

The following overview only shows the novels, film templates and scripts. A more complete bibliography including the very numerous short stories can be found under Robert Bloch / Bibliography .

Novels
  • The Scarf (1947)
  • The Will To Kill (1954)
  • The Kidnapper (1954)
    • German: The Psycho-Trap. Translated by Reinhard Wagner. Bastei-Lübbe, 1994.
  • Spiderweb (1958)
    • German: tool of the devil. Translated by Hannes Riffel. Hard Case Crime # 017. Red Book, 2010.
  • The Shooting Star (1958)
    • German: Shooting Star. Translated by Andreas C. Knigge. Hard Case Crime # 013. Red Book, 2009.
  • Psycho (1959)
    • German: Password Psycho. Translated by Paul Baudisch. The Midnight Books # 51. Kurt Desch, 1960.
  • This Crowded Earth (1960)
  • The Dead Beat (1960)
    • English: The seeds of evil. Translated by Helmut Degner. Heyne Thriller # 1204, Heyne, 1966.
  • Firebug (1961)
    • German: You don't play with fire. Translated by Gretl Friedmann. Scherz, 1969. New edition (as a fire angel ): Diogenes, 1994.
  • The Couch (1962)
    • German: The couch. Translated by Rosemarie Kalin-Ackermann. The Midnight Books # 320. Kurt Desch, 1967.
  • Terror (1962)
    • German: Amok. Translated by Hans Gamber. Heyne Crime # 1306. Heyne, 1968.
  • The Star Stalker (1968)
    • English: You damn Hollywood. Kelter, undated
  • as Collier Young: The Todd Dossier (1969)
  • It's All in Your Mind (1971)
  • Sneak Preview (1971)
    • German: Das Regime der Psychos. Translated by Walter Brumm. Heyne SF # 3407. Heyne, 1974. New edition (as nasty prospects ) in: Wolfgang Jeschke (ed.): Heyne Science Fiction Annual Volume 1987. Heyne SF&F # 4385. Heyne, 1987, ISBN 3-453-31380-1 .
  • Night-World (1972)
  • American Gothic (1974)
  • Strange Eons (1978)
    • English: Cthulhus Returns . Translated by Monika Angerhuber. HP Lovecraft's Library of Secrets # 4. Blitz, 2000, ISBN 3-89840-151-0 . New edition: Festa, 2003, ISBN 3-935822-55-3 .
  • There is a Serpent in Eden (1979, also as The Cunning , 1981)
  • Psycho II (1982)
    • German: Psycho 2. Translated by Willy Thaler. Heyne, 1987.
  • The Night of the Ripper (1984)
    • German: The Ripper. Translated by Regina Rawlinson. Heyne, 1987.
  • Lori (1989)
  • Psycho House (1990)
    • German: PsychoHaus. Translated by Peter A. Schmidt. Bastei-Lübbe, 1992.
  • with Andre Norton: The Jekyll Legacy (1990)
    • German: Dr. Jekyll's legacy. Translated by Reinhard Wagner. Bastei-Lübbe, 1993.
Film templates and scripts

Film templates:

Scripts:

  • 1961: ... always point 7 (The Couch)
  • 1961: The cabinet of Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Caligari)
  • 1963: The Strait Jacket
  • 1964: He only came at night (The Night Walker)
  • 1966: The Puppet Killer (The Psychopath)
  • 1966: The torture garden of Dr. Diabolo (Torture Garden)
  • 1966: The Deadly Bees
  • 1969: Dance of Death of the Vampires (The House That Dripped Blood)
  • 1972: Asylum (Asylum)
  • 1973: The Cat Creature
  • 1975: The Dead Don't Die
  • 1978: Adventure in Atlantis (The Amazing Captain Nemo)
  • 1986: House of the Creeping Death

literature

Web links

Commons : Robert Bloch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Review of The Scarf , accessed September 15, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Bloch, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bloch, Robert Albert (full name); Bloch, Bob (alternative spelling); Bloch, Robert A. (alternative spelling); Fiske, Tarleton (pseudonym); Folke, Will (pseudonym); Hammond, Keith (pseudonym); Hindin, Nathan (pseudonym); Jarvis, EK (pseudonym); Kane, Wilson (pseudonym); Scanlon, Herbert (pseudonym); Scriltch, Floyd (pseudonym); Sheldon, John (pseudonym); Stewart, Lan (pseudonym); Young, Collier (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1994
Place of death los Angeles