Edmond Hamilton was born October, 21st 1904
in Youngstown, Ohio. He spent his childhood on
a farm in Ohio. He lived without the comforts of civilization, such as electricity, running water or automobiles. In 1911 the family moved to New
Castle, Pennsylvania, a town with 40.000 inhabi-
tants. There his father worked as a cartoonist at
the local newspaper.
 

In 1914, the ten-year-old Edmond went to high school. He finished it
in the autumn of 1919 and enrolled in college at the tender age of 14
years. The age difference with the other students made this an isolated
existence. He grew introverted and buried himself in books. In this way
he discovered the fantastic worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells,
George Allan England and of his most favourite author A. Merritt. By the
means of these fantastic escapades he managed to leave behind his
stressful and boring day-to-day life.
 

Hamilton himself commented later:
“I started my second year at college as a 15 year old intellectual.
I smoked abruyere pipe, and read Shaw, O’Neil and Ibsen. I majored
in physics but after one year the lectures started to bore me.”
 

In the following years Edmond Hamilton
worked for the railroad company Pennsyl-
vania Railroad. A few years later he lost
his job, sat down at a typewriter and wrote
his first story. The job with the railroad
company would be the first and only, time
in his life, he had a steady job and fixed
income.
 

He debuted as an author in 1926 with the story
„The Monster-God of Marmurth“, which was pub-
lished in the August edition of the pulp magazine
WEIRD TALES. But his first professional sale was
the novel “Across Space”, which was printed in
three parts from September to November 1926
in WEIRD TALES. The next 22 years E. Hamilton
remained with the magazine.
 

E. Hamilton did not write science
fiction exclusively. After 1932 he
also penned detective stories to
earn some money. His first story
of this kind was published in the
DETECTIVE-STORY-MAGAZINE and
till the end of the 1930s he sold
a lot of crime & detective stories.
 

Hamilton’s stories about Captain Future were published from
1940 to 1944 in their own pulp magazine called CAPTAIN FUTURE.
For those four years every quarter saw the appearance of a new
"CaptainFuture – Wizard of Science" (resp. Man of Tomorrow) for
15 centsapiece. All in all 17 issues were published (no novel was published in the autumn 1943 ). Later on they were reissued in
the magazine STARTLING STORIES, which consisted primarily of
the writing of Edmond Hamilton.
 

Profiting from a new law that exempted
all men over the age of 38 from military
service, Hamilton had not to serve with
the armed forces in Europe in 1943. Even
though he was spared the horrors of
World War II it was a hard time for him,
because both his parents were seriously
ill.
 

On December, 31st 1946 he married Leigh Brackett in San Gabriel, California.
Leigh Brackett was born December, 7th 1915 and published her first science
fictionstory “Martian Quest” in the February edition of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE
FICTION. In the course of her life she was not only very successful in writing
science fiction, she also made herself known by writing for the movies. She
penned the scripts for such famous films such as “The Vampire’s Ghost”, “Rio Bravo”, “Hatari”, “El Dorado” and finally “Star Wars Episode V – The Empire
Strikes Back”
 

Even though they were both
verysuccessful SF-writers, in
31-yearsof marriage they
never wrote a single book
together. On the contrary,
they only showed each other
their work when it was com-
pletely finished.
 

In 1964 Edmond Hamilton
and his wife wereinvited as
guests of honorto 22. World
Science Fiction Convention
in Oakland. And in 1967 Ed.
Hamilton was inducted into
the First Fandom Science
Fiction Hall of Fame.
 

After his death on February, 1st 1977,
the EDMONDHAMILTON MEMORIAL AWARD
was founded. It is given to authors that
manageto convey the “sense of wonder”
in their works. After the death by cancer
of Leigh Brackett on March, 18th 1978 the
award was renamed HAMILTON BRACKETT MEMORIAL AWARD.

Looking back at his career Hamilton once said:
“I still think it was crazy when I decided to earn money solely by writing science fiction … but it worked.
Since 1925, when I wrote my first story I have never done anything else. It was a truly rewarding career,
not monetary, but regarding friendships; and I fulfilled some old dreams of mine.”