On This Day . . .

Once more, thanks are due to our friends at the excellent Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, for it is thanks to their wonderful On This Day function that we can relate an amazing coincidence for 6th November.

It was on this day, in that noted author, editor and critic – and mainstay of the Golden Age – L. Sprague de Camp died, in 2000. de Camp’s claims to fame are many (too many to list here – see his author entry on the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction) and the fact that he is probably best-known these days for editing and adding to Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales should not detract from an extraordinary body of work.

But as interesting as that is, it’s not really a coincidence, is it?  No, the coincidence comes with another event that took place on 6th November, this time in the year 1907, when one Catherine Adelaide Crook was born. In 1939, Ms Crook would marry Lyon Sprague de Camp, with whom she would collaborate until her death in April 2000.  So, L. Sprague de Camp died some seven months after his wife of over 60 years, on the day she would have turned 93. Sad, but true.