C. L. Moore
C. L. Moore, born Catherine Lucile Moore on January 24, 1911, in Indianapolis, Indiana, was a pioneering American author known for her contributions to science fiction and fantasy literature. Despite a challenging childhood marked by illness, she developed a passion for storytelling, which emerged after discovering pulp magazines like *Amazing Stories*. Her breakthrough came with the publication of "Shambleau" in 1933, introducing the character Northwest Smith, who became a significant figure in her works. Moore also created the notable medieval heroine Jirel of Joiry in her 1934 story "The Black God's Kiss."
Throughout her career, she collaborated extensively with her husband, Henry Kuttner, producing influential stories during the golden age of science fiction. Their joint works, often published under various pseudonyms, contributed to the genre's evolution in the 1940s and 1950s. Moore later transitioned to writing for television, scripting popular shows after Kuttner's passing in 1958. Although she stopped publishing fiction in her later years, Moore remained connected to the sci-fi community until her death in 1987. Her legacy as a trailblazer for female writers in speculative fiction continues to be celebrated today.
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C. L. Moore
Author
- Born: January 24, 1911
- Birthplace: Indianapolis, Indiana
- Died: April 7, 1987
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Biography
Catherine Lucile Moore was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 24, 1911. Her father, Otto Newman Moore, was a tool and machine designer. Her mother, a voracious reader, inculcated her with an appreciation of a wide variety of fiction. Moore was a sickly child who spent much of her grade-school and high-school years at home, being tutored privately. She enrolled in Indiana University upon graduating high school, but withdrew in 1930, at the height of the Great Depression, to take a job to help support her family. She was hired as a secretary by the Fletcher Trust Company in Indianapolis, a position she held for more than ten years, and eventually rose to become secretary to the president of the company.
In 1931, Moore, who hitherto had been fond of historical romance and tales of medieval pageantry, picked up a copy of the pulp science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was immediately taken by its contents. She began writing stories of her own. After Amazing Stories rejected several submissions, she tried Weird Tales, a fantasy magazine that occasionally published science fiction. Her first professional sale, “Shambleau,” appeared in the November, 1933, issue and was an immediate hit with readers. It introduced Northwest Smith, a space opera variation on the Wild West gunslinger, and it featured writing of a sophistication and maturity uncommon for fantasy and science fiction magazines at that time.
Smith featured in more than a dozen stories, most published in Weird Tales and eventually collected in Shambleau, and Others (1953) and Northwest of Earth (1954). In 1934, in her story “The Black God’s Kiss,” Moore introduced Jirel of Joiry, a medieval French heroine who would appear in six swashbuckling fantasy stories. The same year, Moore made her first sale to the science-fiction magazine Astounding Stories.
In 1936, Moore received a letter of admiration from another writer, Henry Kuttner. This initiated a correspondence that resulted in their meeting in 1938, and their marriage on June 7, 1940. Virtually all of the fiction they published thereafter, under their own names or a variety of pseudonyms, including Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell, was written collaboratively. Much of the groundbreaking fiction they published in the 1940’s and 1950’s, especially in Astounding, is acknowledged today as having had a major impact on modern science fiction’s “golden age.”
Throughout the 1940’s, Moore and Kuttner divided their time between Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and Laguna Beach, California. In 1950, they moved to Los Angeles, where they both enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC). Here they earned degrees and taught courses in creative writing. Moore and Kuttner began shifting their output to the mystery field and served as joint vice presidents in the Mystery Writers of America. In the late 1950’s, they began developing television scripts for Warner Brothers.
Kuttner died in 1958 and Moore continued teaching at USC and ultimately wrote for Sugarfoot, Maverick, Seventy-Seven Sunset Strip, and other television programs. She married businessman Thomas Reggie on July 18, 1963. No new fiction appeared under her name, but she maintained ties to the science-fiction community, appearing as guest of honor at the 1981 World Science Fiction Convention. Moore was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1984 and died in 1987 from complications of the disease and pneumonia.