Allison V. Harding

Last updated
Allison V. Harding
Other namesAlice B. Harcraft
OccupationWriter
Known forScience fiction stories in Weird Tales

Allison V. Harding was the pen name of an author of science fiction and horror stories that appeared in Weird Tales magazine between 1943 and 1951. It may have been a house pseudonym; however, the byline has generally been associated with Jean Milligan and Lamont Buchanan since 2011.

Contents

Jean Milligan and Lamont Buchanan

Jean Milligan (May 31, 1919 – December 6, 2004) [1] [2] was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in New Canaan, Connecticut, the daughter of John Raymond Milligan and Beatrice Isabel Humphrey Milligan. [3] Her father was a banker, [4] and her mother was a Smith College alumna active in clubwork. [3] Her stepmother, Carina Eaglesfield Mortimer, was an architect and mapmaker. [5] [6] [7] Milligan and her sisters were students at the Low-Heywood School in Stamford. [8] [9] [10] She attended Connecticut College for Women in 1936 and 1937. [11] [12]

Milligan married Charles Lamont Buchanan Jr. in 1952. [13] Buchanan, who wrote at least a dozen pictorial history books [14] on steamships, railroads, aviation, the Confederacy, the Kentucky Derby, and baseball, [15] [16] [17] was an associate editor of Weird Tales magazine during the editorship of Dorothy McIlwraith. [18] Some have proposed that Buchanan wrote or collaborated with Milligan on the stories published under Harding's name; however, payments for the stories were made to Milligan. [19] [20] Milligan died in a New York City nursing home in 2004, at the age of 85. Buchanan died in 2015, leaving a significant fortune. [21]

The cover of Weird Tales for November 1949, with Allison V. Harding mentioned prominently, with an illustration for "The Underbody", her story in that issue. Weird Tales November 1949.jpg
The cover of Weird Tales for November 1949, with Allison V. Harding mentioned prominently, with an illustration for "The Underbody", her story in that issue.
The cover of Weird Tales for May 1948, with Allison V. Harding mentioned prominently on the cover, with an illustration for her story, "City of Lost People". Weird Tales May 1948.jpg
The cover of Weird Tales for May 1948, with Allison V. Harding mentioned prominently on the cover, with an illustration for her story, "City of Lost People".

Works

Harding was "amongst the most prolific of all the contributors to Weird Tales". [22] All of the following works originally appeared in Weird Tales or its sister publication, Short Stories between 1943 and 1951, and many were later included in anthologies of science fiction and horror. [22]

Legacy

In 2011, blogger Terence E. Hanley connected Harding's works to Milligan and Buchanan; investigations by others confirmed this connection. Sixteen of her stories were collected and published as Allison V. Harding: The Forgotten Queen of Horror Fiction (Armchair Fiction, 2020) [27] and more than a dozen have been recorded for the HorrorBabble audio series. "It seems that we're in the middle of an Allison V. Harding mini-Renaissance," wrote reviewer Cora Buhlert in 2020. [23]

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References

  1. ↑ "Summary Bibliography: Allison V. Harding". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2025-01-25.
  2. ↑ Milligan's birth and death dates are also shown as May 31, 1919 and December 6, 2004 in the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index; and she appears in the 1920 federal census returns as a six-month-old baby in her parents' household; via Ancestry.
  3. 1 2 "Mrs. J. R. Milligan Dies in East at 53; Formerly Active in Society and Welfare Here". The Plain Dealer. 1938-11-11. p. 11. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ "J. R. Milligan, Ex-Banker, Dies". The Bridgeport Post. 1959-11-18. p. 65. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Society item". Hartford Courant. 1940-12-23. p. 11. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Mortimer Milligan, Carina Eaglesfield (March 19, 1890 - September 12, 1978)". Geographicus Rare Antique Maps. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
  7. ↑ "New Haven". La Jolla Map Museum. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
  8. ↑ "Society item". Hartford Courant. 1932-02-14. p. 44. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "Milligan-Case". Hartford Courant. 1933-01-15. p. 26. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Society item". Hartford Courant. 1931-11-29. p. 48. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "227 Students Enter Conn. College for Women as Freshmen". The Day. 1936-09-29. p. 11. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Connecticut College Hop". Hartford Courant. 1937-12-10. p. 15. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "Mrs. Henry S. Bullard". The Bridgeport Post. 1973-03-26. p. 48. Retrieved 2025-01-25– via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "New Pictorial History of Political Campaigns". The Plain Dealer. 1956-06-17. p. 134. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ Brown, Alexander C. (1956-12-02). "Steamship Development in Detail". Richmond Times-Dispatch. p. 98. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "The Fabulous Run for the Roses: Graphic Picturial History of Kentucky Derby". The Columbia Record. 1953-04-23. p. 14. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Wellman, Manly Wade (1951-12-09). "Picture Story of Boys in Gray". The News and Observer. p. 62. Retrieved 2025-01-26– via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ Ashley, Michael (2000-01-01). The History of the Science-fiction Magazine. Liverpool University Press. p. 140. ISBN   978-0-85323-855-3.
  19. ↑ Ilseman, Matthew. "The Weird Fiction of the Unjustly Forgotten Allison V. Harding" DMR Books (October 29, 2024).
  20. ↑ Brown, Michael R. (2020-10-12). "Masters of Horror: Allison V. Harding & HPL". The Pulp Super-Fan. Retrieved 2025-01-25.
  21. ↑ Fanelli, James (2017-10-01). "You Ask Me Rye?". Daily News. p. 22. Retrieved 2025-01-25.
  22. 1 2 3 Barrett, Mike (2016-09-06). "Mike Barrett: Fearful Landscapes: The Weird Fiction of Allison V. Harding". The New York Review of Science Fiction. Retrieved 2025-01-25.
  23. 1 2 Cora Buhlert. "The Elusive Allison V. Harding and How to Suppress Women’s Writing . . . Again" Cora Buhlert (November 12, 2020).
  24. ↑ Weird Tales 40(1). 1947-11-01.
  25. ↑ Weird Tales 40(6). September 1948.
  26. ↑ Weird Tales 42(1). November 1949.
  27. ↑ Harding, Allison V. (2020). Masters of Horror, Vol. 1: Allison V. Harding, the Forgotten Queen of Horror. Armchair Fiction. ISBN   1612874630.
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