Avram Davidson (March 23, 1923 - May 9, 1993) was a crime fiction, fantasy fiction, and science fiction writer and editor.
Davidson wrote many stories for fiction magazines beginning in the 1950s, after publishing his first fiction in Commentary and other Jewish magazines. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the early 1960s. His best-known works are his novels about Vergil, the magician that medieval legend made out of the Roman poet of the same name; the Peregrine novels, a comic view of Europe shortly after the fall of Rome; the Jack Limekiller stories about a Canadian living in an imaginary South American country modelled after Belize during the 1960s, and, perhaps most notable of all, the stories of Dr. Esterhazy, a sort of even-more-erudite Sherlock Holmesian figure living in the mythical Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, the waning fourth-largest empire in Europe. He also wrote dozens of short stories that defy classification, and the Adventures in Unhistory essays, which delve into puzzles such as the identity of Prester John and suggest solutions to them. His earlier historical essays were scrupulously researched, even when published by magazines just as happy to offer fiction as fact.
Much of Davidson's work was characterised by a great deal of erudite embellishment and asides. Very little may actually happen in a Davidson story, but Davidson enjoys describing it in enormous detail. Davidson succeeds with this technique because of a good ear for the way that people talk, an encylopedic store of obscure and fascinating knowledge, and an irresistibly comic view of the world that sees virtually everyone as eccentric.
Davidson served as a US Marine Corps medic in the Pacific during World War II, and began his writing career as a Talmudic scholar around 1950. Although he had a reputation for being quick to anger when anyone tampered with his work or misunderstood it, Davidson was also greatly in demand as a storyteller, and well-known among his friends for his extreme generosity. In his later years, he lived in Washington state. He died in his tiny apartment in Bremerton on May 8, 1993. He was survived by his son Ethan, and his ex-wife Grania Davis , who continues to edit and release his unpublished works.
External links
