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science-fiction magazines. The Mightiest Machine, which began in the December, 1934, astounding stories and ran for five issues, epitomized the type of story that had created his following. Mighty spaceships move at speeds faster than light from star system to star system, warping themselves through another dimen-sion at the whim of Aarn Munro, a mental and physical superman, descendant of earthmen raised on the surface of the planet Jupiter. He custom-contrives universe-shaking en-ergy weapons to combat alien fleets in universe-wide battles. Like Edward E. Smith, Campbell was undeniably a literary Houdini in the mind-staggering art, convincingly manipulat-ing stupendous forces on a cosmic scale. Time was running out on macrocosmic spectaculars like The Mightiest Machine; changes were occurring in plotting and writing science fiction that were to make the story a period piece before it was completed; yet its impact was so profound on a youthful Englishman, Arthur C. Clarke, that nearly twenty years later he would use a race similar to the devil-like villains, the Teff-hellani, in his greatest critical suc-cess, Childhood's End, At the other literary extreme, Richard S. Shaver (or Raymond A. Palmer, who actually wrote most of the stories carrying the Shaver name) would adapt Camp-bell's premise that this evil race once lived in vast caverns under Mu and was driven away in a prehistoric Ragnorok, as the basis of the Shaver "Mystery."
    Notwithstanding, Campbell's major contribution in both storytelling and influence was yet to come. More than is true of most writers, his early life and background shaped the direction he would take in specific plot ideas as well as in method.
    John Wood Campbell, Jr., was born in a two-family frame house at 16 Tracey Ave., Newark, New Jersey, on June 8, 1910. The street bordered the then fashionable Clinton Hill section. His father, John W. Campbell, Sr., an electrical engineer, had come to Newark one year earlier. Having secured a position with New Jersey Bell Telephone, whose headquarters were in Newark, the elder Campbell returned to Napoleon, Ohio, to marry Dorothy Strahern, whose family tree made her eligible for the Daughters of the American Revolution.
    He took his wife back to Newark, a break in family tradition, since the Campbells were influential society in Napoleon. They had come to Napoleon from Rochester, Vermont, where members of the family had been in the state legislature. Campbell's father had been a Congressman for that district, a Master in Chancery, and a Judge of Equity.
    After seven years in Newark, the family moved to Maplewood, a suburb of Newark, where John, Jr., attended public school. Precociously intellectual, interested in everything around him, young John had virtually no friends. At home, his relationship with his parents was emotionally difficult. His father carried impersonality and theoretical objectivity in family matters to the brink of fetish. He almost never used the pronoun "I." All statements were in the third person: "It is necessary," "One must," "It appears that," "One should." Not only was he an authoritarian in his own home but a self-righteous disciplinarian as well, who put obedience high on the list of filial duties. Affection was not in his makeup, and if he felt any for the boy he managed to repress it.
    The mother's changeability baffled and frustrated the youngster. Self-centered, flighty, moody, she was unpredicta-ble from moment to moment. While she was not deliberately cruel, her gestures of warmth appeared to him so transitory and contrived as to be quickly discounted. His mother had a twin sister who was literally identical. So close were they in appearance that no one, not even John, could tell them apart. The sisters were in psychological conflict because John's mother had married first, and he found himself used as an innocent pawn by his mother who fawned over him at great length as a subtle taunt to her twin. The result was that John's