L. Sprague de Camp
American non- and speculative fiction writer (1907–2000)
Lyon Sprague de Camp (; November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction literature. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.
Biography
De Camp was born in New York City, one of three sons of Lyon de Camp (a businessman in real-estate and lumber), and of Emma Beatrice Sprague. His maternal grandfather was the accountant, banker, pioneering Volapükist and Civil War veteran Charles Ezra Sprague. De Camp once noted that he rarely used pen-names, "partly because my own true name sounds more like a pseudonym than most pseudonyms do".
De Camp began his education at the Trinity School in New York, then spent ten years attending the Snyder School in North Carolina, a military-style institution. His stay at the Snyder School represented an attempt by his parents, who were heavy-handed disciplinarians, to cure him of intellectual arrogance and of lack of discipline. He was awkward and thin, an ineffective fighter, and suffered from bullying by his classmates. His experiences at the school taught him to develop a detached, analytical style considered cold by all but his closest friends, though he could, like his father, be disarming and funny in social situations.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “L. Sprague de Camp” is american non- and speculative fiction writer (1907–2000). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sprague, Camp and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q316313. VIAF identifies the subject as 31995203. The Library of Congress control number is n80057222. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1907 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “L. Sprague de Camp” 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.