Cyril M. Kornbluth
American science fiction author (1923-1958)
Cyril M. Kornbluth (July 2, 1923 – March 21, 1958) was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner.
Early life
Kornbluth was born on July 2, 1923 and grew up in the uptown Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood, in New York. He was of Polish-Jewish descent, the son of a World War I veteran and grandson of a tailor, a Jewish immigrant from Galicia.
The "M" in Kornbluth's name may have been in tribute to his wife, Mary Byers; Kornbluth's colleague and collaborator Frederik Pohl confirmed Kornbluth's lack of any actual middle name in at least one interview.
According to his widow, Kornbluth was a "precocious child", learning to read by the age of three and writing his own stories by the time he was seven. He graduated from high school at thirteen, received a CCNY scholarship at fourteen, and was "thrown out for leading a student strike" without graduating.
As a teenager, he became a member of the Futurians, an influential group of science fiction fans and writers. While a member of the Futurians, he met and became friends with Frederik Pohl, Donald A. Wollheim, Robert A. W. Lowndes, and his future wife Mary Byers. He also participated in the Fantasy Amateur Press Association.
The public source identifies “Cyril M. Kornbluth” as american science fiction author (1923-1958). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cyril, Kornbluth and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q376859. VIAF identifies the subject as 13038. The Library of Congress control number is n50053582. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923 and 1958.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cyril M. Kornbluth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.