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Dikty, T E

Entry updated 14 August 2023. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.

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(1920-1991) US editor and publisher, married from 1953 until his death to Julian May, about whose work he compiled The Work of Julian May: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide (1985 chap) with Robert Reginald. An early sf fan, Dikty started an sf checklist on index cards with the collector Frederick Shoyer in 1939, but the cards were lost in World War Two. After the war, with Erle Korshak and Mark Reinsberg, he became a bookseller and passed the partially reassembled checklist on to Everett F Bleiler, who used it to compile The Checklist of Fantastic Literature (1948) – the first comprehensive Bibliography in the sf field – which Dikty and Korshak founded Shasta Publishers to put into print. Dikty was also associated with the setting-up of the publishers Carcosa House. With Bleiler, Dikty edited an annual Anthology series – the first "year's-best" series to appear in the field, beginning with The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1949 (anth 1949) and The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1950 (anth 1950; cut vt The Best Science Fiction Stories 1951), both assembled as Science Fiction Omnibus (omni 1952), and ending with The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1954 (anth 1954; vt The Best Science Fiction Stories, Fifth Series 1956). Frontiers in Space (anth 1955) contains a selection from the second, third and fourth volumes. After the collaboration with Bleiler ended, Dikty went on to produce three further "best" volumes as sole editor [see Checklist for details], as well as a some singleton anthologies.

A second series, Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, presented a selection of longer stories: Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1952 (anth 1952; cut vt Year's Best Science Fiction Novels 1953), Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1953 (anth 1953; cut vt Category Phoenix 1955) and Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, 1954 (anth 1954; cut vt Year's Best Science Fiction Novels, Second Series 1955). Together Dikty and Bleiler also edited Imagination Unlimited (anth 1952; cut vt Men of Space and Time 1953), which contains stories on each of 15 sciences.

In the 1950s, after Shasta had collapsed in ignominy, Dikty formed Publication Associates with Julian May, and worked closely with her on various projects for the rest of his life, acting as her agent and editor on all her mature work. In 1972, with Darrell C Richardson, he founded and, with the added help of Robert E Weinberg, ran FAX Collector's Editions, a publishing enterprise aimed at reprinting material, often in facsimile, from old magazines; at about the same time (though its first title did not appear until 1976), and also with Weinberg (who dropped out after a year), he founded Starmont House to produce monographs on individual sf writers, along with some bibliographies and fiction, anonymously editing for the firm one anthology, Worlds Within Worlds: Four Classic Argosy Tales of Science Fiction (anth 1991). Two of his and Julian May's children carried on with the firm after his death. [JC/MJE]

see also: Small Presses and Limited Editions.

Thaddeus Maxim Eugene Dikty

born Port Clinton, Ohio: 16 June 1920

died Mercer Island, Washington: 11 October 1991

works

nonfiction

works as editor

series

Best Science Fiction Stories

Year's Best Science Fiction Novels

individual titles as editor

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