James, Edward

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.

(1947- ) UK academic and editor – early involved in UK Fandom – who began teaching at University College, Dublin, in 1970, and moved to York University in 1978, where he became Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies in 1992; he was appointed Professor of History at the University of Reading in September 1995, and was there responsible with Patrick Parrinder for founding Reading's MA in Science Fiction: Histories, Texts, Media; in 2004 he was appointed to the Chair of Medieval History at University College, Dublin; he retired at the end of 2011. James was the editor of Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction from #37 in Autumn 1986 to #83 in Autumn 2001, continuing thereafter as this Academic Journal's production editor until #100, Summer 2007. In his capacity as Foundation editor he compiled an Index to Foundation, 1-40 (1988) and edited with Maxim Jakubowski The Profession of Science Fiction (anth 1992), which assembles autobiographical pieces first published in the journal under that surtitle. Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (1994), though designed as an introductory survey to the field, has much to say which is of use to his fellow scholars as well; it won an Eaton Award. With Farah Mendlesohn – with whom he has lived since 1994; they were married in 2001 – he co-edited the 2005 Hugo award-winning The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (anth 2003). Lois McMaster Bujold (2015) is a thorough study of the sf author Lois McMaster Bujold.

James's World War One-related website project "Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers in the Great War", launched in 2014 [see links below], won a BSFA Award for best nonfiction. He himself received the IAFA Award for Distinguished Scholarship in 2017. [JC/DRL]

Edward Frederick James

born Solihull, Warwickshire: 14 May 1947

works

nonfiction

Index to Foundation, 1-40 (London: North East London Polytechnic, 1988) [nonfiction: pb/nonpictorial]
Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) [nonfiction: pb/Robert McCall]
A Short History of Fantasy (London: Middlesex University Press, 2009) with Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: pb/Charles Vess]
Lois McMaster Bujold (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2015) [nonfiction: Lois McMaster Bujold: in the publisher's Modern Masters of Science Fiction series: pb/uncredited: hb/nonpictorial]

works as editor

The Profession of Science Fiction: Sf Writers on Their Craft and Ideas (London: Macmillan Press, 1992) with Maxim Jakubowski [nonfiction: anth: hb/Ian Pollock]
The Parliament of Dreams: Conferring on Babylon 5 (Reading, Berkshire: Science Fiction Foundation, 1998) with Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: Babylon 5: pb/AURA/STScI]
Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature (Reading, Berkshire: Science Fiction Foundation, 2000) with Andrew M Butler and Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: undated but 2000: Terry Pratchett: pb/Josh Kirby]
- Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature: Second Edition (Baltimore, Maryland: Old Earth Books, 2004) with Andrew M Butler and Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: exp rev of the above: Terry Pratchett: hb/photographic]
The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2003) with Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: hb/Jim Burns]
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2011) with Farah Mendlesohn [nonfiction: anth: hb/from John Picacio – detail of painting]

links

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