FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Contact: Dave Wellman, Director of Communications (304) 696-7153
 

Marshall University Libraries to celebrate
life and career of famed science fiction author Nelson S. Bond

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The Marshall University Libraries will host a week-long retrospective on the life and career of legendary science fiction writer and Marshall University alumnus Nelson S. Bond beginning Monday April 14, Barbara A. Winters, dean of the Marshall Libraries, announced today.

Among the highlights of the retrospective titled “Nelson S. Bond: From WV to TV and Beyond” are vintage video presentations on the Marshall campus from television shows produced from Bond’s scripts, and the dedication of the Nelson Bond Room on the third floor of the Morrow Library scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday, April 19.

“Nelson Slade Bond may be the only graduate of the Page Pitt School of Journalism to have had a career in each of the seven specialties taught in the school,” Winters said. “He studied under Page Pitt himself, and his writing career spanned seven decades. In just 23 years, from 1935 to 1958, he published 258 stories in 68 different magazines. These included crime, mystery and sports pieces as well and fantasy and science fiction.”

Vintage TV shows based on Bond’s work to be shown in Drinko Library Room 402 are:

Monday, April 14 – “Al Haddon’s Lamp,” first published as a short story in Unknown Worlds, June 1942. Adapted as a live radio play for CBS’ Escape, 1949. Adapted for live television on NBC’s Gruen Guild Playhouse, 1952.  Stars Buddy Ebsen.

Tuesday, April 15 – “Bacular Clock,” first published as a short story in Blue Book, 1942. Adapted for live radio on NBC’s The World’s Greatest Stories and Stories of Nelson Olmstead, 1942. Adapted for live television, Revue Productions, 1949. Stars Buddy Ebsen.

Wednesday, April 16 – “Mask of Medusa,” first published as a short story in Blue Book, December 1945. Adapted for live radio on NBC’s Peter Lorre’s Mystery on the Air, 1947. Adapted for live television, and first broadcast on NBC’s Radio City Playhouse, 1949. Marshall’s version televised on NBC’s Tales of Tomorrow, 1953.  Stars Raymond Burr.

Thursday, April 17 – “The Night America Trembled,” first full-length (60 minutes) live television play on CBS’s Studio One, 1957. Stars Edward R. Murrow, Ed Asner, James Colburn, Warren Beatty, Warren Oats, Vince Gardenia. A dramatization of the events of Oct. 30, 1938, when Orson Welles scared the United States witless with his adaptation of “The War Of The Worlds,”  the Nelson Bond-authored television play stars Edward R. Murrow, Ed Asner, James Colburn, Warren Beatty, Warren Oats and Vince Gardenia. Bond’s script for “The Night America Trembled” brought Studio One the highest ratings in its history.

Each video presentation will be introduced by Lisle Brown, curator in Marshall University Libraries Special Collections, who will provide attendees with little-known facts and historical perspective about Bond and the programs produced from his writings. All videos are 30-minutes long, except for “The Night America Trembled.”

Winters said members of Nelson Bond’s family scheduled to attend the dedication of the Nelson Bond Room include his widow, Betty Bond, and his son, Lynn Bond.

Nelson Bond began transferring his literary papers to the University Libraries Special Collections Department at Marshall in 2003 and continued the process up to his death on Nov. 4, 2006, just 19 days short of his 98th birthday.

“The collection contains all of his output as an author:  his radio and TV scripts and plays, the original pulp fictions magazines, tear sheets, manuscripts, and the index cards and daybooks recording publication details,” Winters said.

The collection also includes correspondence (including fan mail), contracts, agent correspondence and financial records – as well as a full run of the Nelson Bond Society’s Newsletter and copies of his antiquarian book catalogs. 

For further information, contact Winters at (304) 696-2318.

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