The Dark Descent

David G. Hartwell was an American science-fiction and fantasy editor, anthologist, and critic whose four decades of editorial work shaped the modern American science-fiction publishing landscape. Born in 1941 and educated at Williams College and Columbia University, where he earned a Ph.D. in comparative medieval literature, he combined academic training in literary history with deep involvement in the science-fiction publishing industry from the 1970s onward. Hartwell held senior editorial positions at Berkley Books, Pocket Books, Timescape (where he edited Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun), Arbor House, and most prominently at Tor Books, where he served as a senior editor for more than two decades and acquired and edited many of the field's major writers. His editorial discoveries and ongoing relationships included Gene Wolfe, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, and many others. He is best remembered by general readers as the editor of The Dark Descent, the landmark 1987 horror anthology that brought together more than fifty stories spanning the history of supernatural and weird fiction and helped define the field for a generation of readers. With Kathryn Cramer he edited the long-running Year's Best SF and Year's Best Fantasy annual anthologies, as well as numerous theme anthologies including The Ascent of Wonder (hard SF) and The Hard SF Renaissance. Hartwell was also publisher of The New York Review of Science Fiction from its founding in 1988 until his death, and his critical book Age of Wonders remains one of the most-cited surveys of science-fiction culture and history. He won the Hugo Award for Best Editor multiple times before his death in 2016, and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement was conferred on him in 2006.