Talk:Nat Schachner

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Seems silly to state his career went into decline after 1940-- several of his SF works appeared in 1941, and more particularly, after 1940 his career as a historical novelist and a biographer was in full bloom; it seems to be only his career as a science fiction writer that "went into decline". So I modified that text to state his science-fiction career went into decline after 1940. Geoffrey.landis 21:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Nathan

also appearing as "Nathan Schachner"

Does that mean he sometimes used that byline (rather than Nat), or that some sources give Nathan as his full forename? —Tamfang (talk) 04:25, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@Tamfang: According to the The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Schachner "regrettably" lost interest in the SF genre around 1940. Also "regrettably", sources of Schachner's work are far and few. The SF Encyclopedia's may be the best. It lists what appears to be all of his writings, both fiction and non-fiction, and it credits them to the names he published under. Most of his fiction was written as Nat Schachner with occasional uses of pseudonyms, though on a few works Nathan would appear as his first name. As a non-fiction writer he used Nathan exclusively. Interestingly, his early collaborator Arthur L. Zagat lived in the same apartment building he did. They both died there, though five-and-a-half years apart. They also were married, and each had one daughter. Allreet (talk) 15:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I researched Schachner's career further and found that he used Chan Corbett and Walter Glamis as pseudonyms whenever two of his stories would appear in the same issue of a magazine. He would use Nat Schachner for the main story and a pseudonym for the secondary one. This occurred on nine occasions, and in eight of them he used Corbett. Remarkably, Schachner averaged about one story a month for 10 years, at which point he began writing historical biographies. Most of his fictional work appeared under Nat and his non-fiction under Nathan.

Some other notes of interest: his historical work was generally well respected; for example, his two-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson (1,100 pages) was among the books in President Truman's personal library. Schachner's short stories and novellas appeared in "pulp" magazines that specialized in science fiction and mysteries. His contributions were often listed first in the magazines' table of contents. The other writers were often among the leaders in the science fiction genre, including Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, and the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Allreet (talk) 04:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Date of death

For whatever reason, his date of death was missing, given as just "1955". Findagrave and other sources confirm October 2, 1955 as the date, which I've added. Allreet (talk) 14:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)