Here is the tragic tale of the rise and fall of Camelot.
Marion Zimmer was born in Albany, NY, on June 3, 1930, and married
Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in
1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did
graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from
1965-67.
She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens, and
made her first sale as an adjunct to an amateur fiction contest in
Fantastic/Amazing Stories in 1949. She had written as long as she
could remember, but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines
until 1952, when she sold her first professional short story to
Vortex Science Fiction. She wrote everything from science fiction
to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels.
In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines,
amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy
Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual
anthology called Sword and Sorceress for DAW Books.
Over the years she turned more to fantasy; The House Between the
Worlds, although a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, was
'fantasy undiluted'. She wrote a novel of the women in the
Arthurian legends -- Morgan Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and
others - entitled Mists of Avalon, which made the NY Times best
seller list both in hardcover and trade paperback, and she also
wrote The Firebrand, a novel about the women of the Trojan War. Her
historical fantasy novels, The Forest House, Lady of Avalon, Mists
of Avalon are prequels to Priestess of Avalon.
She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days
after suffering a major heart attack. She was survived by her
brother, Leslie Zimmer; her sons, David Bradley and Patrick Breen;
her daughter, Moira Stern; and her grandchildren.
"[A] monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . Reading
it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An
impressive achievement."
--The New York Times Book Review
"Marion Zimmer Bradley has brilliantly and innovatively turned the
myth inside out. . . . add[ing] a whole new dimension to our mythic
history."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Gripping . . . Superbly realized . . . A worthy addition to almost
a thousand years of Arthurian tradition."
--The Cleveland Plain Dealer
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