Author Biography and Bibliography

(This biography is adapted from Virginia Heinlein's essay in Grumbles from the Grave and Thomas Perry's essay "Ham & Eggs & Heinlein" in Monad #3, September 1993.)

Robert Anson Heinlein was born on July 7th, 1907, in Butler, Bates County, Missouri, the third son of Rex Ivar Heinlein and Bam Lyle Heinlein. At a young age he moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. He grew up there, but spent summers with relatives in Butler. After attending Kansas City Community College for one year he entered the Naval Academy in 1925. Heinlein was commissioned in 1929 and served on a variety of ships until, in 1934, he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. After being cured, he retired as medically unfit for service—"permanently disabled"—and was given a small pension.

In late 1938 the science fiction magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories announced a story contest. Less a one-shot contest than an ongoing search for new authors, it offered full rates (one half cent per word, up to $50) to any previously unpublished writer whose story was selected.

Although Heinlein had been a voracious reader of everything including the earliest science fiction magazines, he always claimed that it was this "contest" announcement that led to the writing of his first story. He turned out "Life-Line" in four days in April of 1939 and submitted it not to TWS, which he assumed would be flooded with manuscripts, but to John W. Campbell at Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell promptly bought the story at one cent per word, $70. Heinlein never seriously worked at any other trade for the remainder of his life.

Heinlein divorced his first wife in 1947. In late 1948, he married Virginia Doris Gerstenfeld, who remained his wife, assistant, and close companion until his death in 1988. She presently lives on the South Atlantic coast. Heinlein died peacefully during his morning nap on May 8th, 1988, finally succumbing to a combination of emphysema and related health problems that had plagued him for the last several years of his life. His remains were scattered from the stern of a Navy warship off the coast of California, near his beloved Santa Cruz home of twenty years, Bonny Doon.





Photograph by Virginia Heinlein.