Manly Wade Wellman

Manly Wade Wellman was an American writer. While his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, Wellman is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales, and for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region. Karl Edward Wagner referred to him as "the dean of fantasy writers." Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction.

Wellman was born in the village of Kamundongo in Portuguese West Africa (now Angola), where his father, Frederick Creighton Wellman, was stationed as a medical officer. He spoke the native dialect before he learned English, and became an adopted son of a powerful chief whose vision Dr Wellman restored. As a small child, Manly twice visited London, where the family stayed in Torrington Square (obliterated during the Battle of Britain). When he was still a young boy, his family moved to the United States, where he attended school in Washington, D.C., prep school in Salt Lake City, and college at Wichita Municipal University (now Wichita State University) in Kansas. After graduating from Wichita State with his BA in English in 1926, he went on to receive a Bachelor of Laws degree from Columbia Law School. A distinguished football player, he received little encouragement from either family or teachers with his plans to become a writer. An early story, "Back to the Beast", resulted in one teacher remarking "Your work is impossible!" Yet this same story became his first professional sale when editor Farnsworth Wright bought it and published it in Weird Tales (November 1927).

Frances Wellman died on May 7, 2000. She was cremated and her ashes spread on the lawn of their home at Dogwood Acres in Chapel Hill, NC.

A son, Wade Wellman, died January 25, 2018, in Waukesha, Wisconsin.