Ritter, David
Entry updated 11 August 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1960- ) US engineer, editor and author, father of Daniel Ritter, with whom he is primarily responsible as author and editor of the ongoing Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom sequence beginning with The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom: Volume One: The 1930s (2020). The series provides within a roughly chronological sequence a loose but informed nonfiction narrative braiding together annals of sf Fandom; biographical material on relevant figures, including fans and professional authors; detailed analyses of significant Fanzines; with carefully curated illustrations, some deteriorated images being digitally enhanced for legibility. A tactful balance is achieved between undue derogation of 1930s/1940s fans, many of them teenagers, and undue inflation of their role in creating American Genre SF, which also owed a great deal to commercial exigencies in the SF Magazine world, which was of course run for profit. In the end, a convincing portrait is unpacked of a complex and possibly uniquely generative relationship among all these elements. [JC]
David Ritter
born Gloversville, New York: 1 March 1960
works
series
Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom
- The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume One: The 1930s (place not given: First Fandom Experience, 2020) written and edited with Daniel Ritter [nonfiction: Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom: hb/Mark Wheatley]
- The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume Two: 1940 (place not given: First Fandom Experience, 2021) written and edited with Daniel Ritter [nonfiction: Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom: hb/Mark Wheatley]
- The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume Three: 1941 (place not given: First Fandom Experience, 2024) written and edited with Daniel Ritter [nonfiction: Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom: hb/Mark Wheatley]
individual titles as editor
- Various authors. The Ultimate Cosmos (no place given: First Fandom Experience, 2025) [first appeared July 1933-December 1934/January 1935 Science Fiction Digest/Fantasy Magazine as "Cosmos": edited by David Ritter et al: pb/Clay Ferguson, Jr]
links
previous versions of this entry