<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Henry Kuttner ( April 7, 1915 – February 4, 1958) Beginning as an acolyte (and correspondent) of H. P. Lovecraft, Kuttner's first publication was a poem in a 1936 issue of Weird Tales. He quickly turned out a large quantity of both fantasy and science fiction, some of it imbued with a certain dreaminess reminiscent of A. Merritt. In 1940 he married Catherine Moore and one of the greatest of all writing marriages of the 20th century began. Together they wrote hundreds of stories and dozens of novels under a long list of pseudonyms, the majority of which are mysteries.

Kuttner and Moore became key writers for John Campbell's Astounding in the 1940s, usually under the pseudonyms Lewis Padgett (generally Kuttner) and Lawrence O'Donnell (usually Moore). Kuttner was responsible for two almost surrealistic stories from Astounding that have been anthologized many times: "The Twonky" (1942) and "Mimsy were the Borogoves" (1943), both of which deal with strange intrusions into workaday reality from the far future. Kuttner was also the sole author of a series of stories about Gallagher Galloway, a scientist who could only invent when he was rip-roaring drunk (collected as Robots Have No Tails 1952 under the Padgett pseudonym, but later reprinted as by Kuttner).

One of the most influential works of Kuttner and Moore was the "Baldy" series (in Astounding in 1945-53, and published as Mutant in the latter year). The stories concern a race of telepaths, and they are remarkable for their use of outrageous typography to indicate telepathic communication. This prefigured the psychedelic era of the 1960's by about 20 years, and clearly influenced Alfred Bester in The Demolished Man (1953) and The Stars My Destination (1957).

Kuttner and Moore vastly reduced the level of their writing in 1950 as they started studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Both received bachelor degrees, and Kuttner began work on an M. A. but died of a heart attack before he could complete it.