Harry Bates

Born Hiram Gilmore Bates III in Pittsburgh in 1900, he worked in pulp publishing in the 1920s and became the founding editor of Astounding Stories of Super-Science in 1930. That role placed him near the center of early magazine science fiction, where he helped bring the genre to a wider popular audience.

As a writer, he is most closely linked to "Farewell to the Master" (1940), the story later adapted into the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still. He also wrote adventure and science-fiction work under names including Anthony Gilmore, sometimes in collaboration with D. W. Hall.

Bates died in September 1981. Even though he is not as widely known as some later science-fiction figures, his influence still shows up wherever readers trace the roots of classic magazine SF and one of the genre’s most famous screen adaptations.