"Betty was the identifier, the nurturer, the editor"
February 25, 2019 11:28 AM Subscribe
Betty Ballantine, half of a groundbreaking husband-and-wife publishing team that helped invent the modern paperback and vastly expand the market for science fiction and other genres through such blockbusters as “The Hobbit” and “Fahrenheit 451,” died Feb. 12 at her home in Bearsville, N.Y. She was 99.
Betty Ballantine, Who Helped Introduce Paperbacks, Dies at 99: While Ian Ballantine, who died in 1995, was the better known of the publishing duo, Betty Ballantine, who was British, quietly devoted herself to the editorial side. She nurtured authors, edited manuscripts and helped promote certain genres — westerns, mysteries, romance novels and, perhaps most significant, science fiction and fantasy. Her love for that genre, and her knowledge of it, helped put it on the map.
“She birthed the science fiction novel,” said Tad Wise, a nephew of Ms. Ballantine’s by marriage. With the help of Frederik Pohl, a science fiction writer, editor and agent, Mr. Wise said, “She sought out the pulp writers of science fiction who were writing for magazines and said she wanted them to write novels, and she would publish them.”
In doing so she helped a wave of science fiction and fantasy writers emerge. They included Joanna Russ, author of “The Female Man” (1975), a landmark novel of feminist science fiction, and Samuel R. Delany, whose “Dhalgren” (1975) was one of the best-selling science fiction novels of its time.
Paperback pioneer Betty Ballantine dead at 99: “We really, truly wanted and did publish books that mattered,” Mrs. Ballantine told the science fiction-fantasy magazine Locus in 2002. “And science fiction matters, because it’s of the mind, it predicts, it thinks, it says, ‘Look at what’s happening here. If that’s what’s happening here and now, what’s it going to look like 10 years from now, 50 years from now, or 2,000 years from now?’ It’s a form of magic. Not abracadabra or wizardry. It is the minds of humankind that make this magic.”
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One of the first publishing names I learned to recognize as a young bookstore/library-haunting nerd.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:59 AM on February 25, 2019 [7 favorites]
One of the first publishing names I learned to recognize as a young bookstore/library-haunting nerd.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:59 AM on February 25, 2019 [7 favorites]
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posted by Quasirandom at 12:05 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by Quasirandom at 12:05 PM on February 25, 2019
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(grew up -- literally on Ballentine's label)
posted by twidget at 12:06 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
(grew up -- literally on Ballentine's label)
posted by twidget at 12:06 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by oneswellfoop at 12:21 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:21 PM on February 25, 2019
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posted by praemunire at 12:59 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by praemunire at 12:59 PM on February 25, 2019
(Imagine how different today's pop culture would look if The Hobbit hadn't found a publisher.)
posted by praemunire at 12:59 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by praemunire at 12:59 PM on February 25, 2019
📖
posted by Gelatin at 1:11 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Gelatin at 1:11 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
My own private black monolith has back-to-back 'B's unobtrusively stamped on its top surface.
posted by jamjam at 1:16 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 1:16 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Like for many other readers, one of the first publishing imprints I was ever aware of was Ballantine Books.
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posted by Kattullus at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
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posted by Kattullus at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
📚
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Ms. Ballantine and her husband had a huge effect on my life. I wouldn’t be the voracious reader that I am without them and I am grateful to them.
posted by Silverstone at 1:46 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
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Ms. Ballantine and her husband had a huge effect on my life. I wouldn’t be the voracious reader that I am without them and I am grateful to them.
posted by Silverstone at 1:46 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by JoeXIII007 at 2:36 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by JoeXIII007 at 2:36 PM on February 25, 2019
📚
posted by nicebookrack at 2:43 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by nicebookrack at 2:43 PM on February 25, 2019
📚
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:44 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:44 PM on February 25, 2019
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Betty Ballantine was one of those people who I didn't even know existed until she passed away yet who had an outsized influence on my intellectual development when I was growing up. As others have already noted, my bookshelf was littered with spines that had the Ballantine and Del Ray logos.
posted by KingEdRa at 6:46 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Betty Ballantine was one of those people who I didn't even know existed until she passed away yet who had an outsized influence on my intellectual development when I was growing up. As others have already noted, my bookshelf was littered with spines that had the Ballantine and Del Ray logos.
posted by KingEdRa at 6:46 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
She published those early softcover Frank Frazetta art books, which did a lot to propel him to fame.
posted by marxchivist at 7:19 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by marxchivist at 7:19 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
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(Imagine how different today's pop culture would look if The Hobbit hadn't found a publisher.)
Hmm?
posted by Fukiyama at 7:30 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
(Imagine how different today's pop culture would look if The Hobbit hadn't found a publisher.)
Hmm?
posted by Fukiyama at 7:30 PM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by eye of newt at 9:32 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by eye of newt at 9:32 PM on February 25, 2019
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posted by redrawturtle at 9:47 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by redrawturtle at 9:47 PM on February 25, 2019
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posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 11:07 PM on February 25, 2019
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 11:07 PM on February 25, 2019
(Imagine how different today's pop culture would look if The Hobbit hadn't found a publisher.)
Gosh darn it. The Hobbit did have a publisher. Ballantine LITERALLY PIRATED the book for publication in the U.S., much to J.R.R. Tolkien's dismay and ire -- not least due to them changing the plural "dwarves" to "dwarfs" in the American version, an unforgivable crime against philology.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:26 AM on February 27, 2019
Gosh darn it. The Hobbit did have a publisher. Ballantine LITERALLY PIRATED the book for publication in the U.S., much to J.R.R. Tolkien's dismay and ire -- not least due to them changing the plural "dwarves" to "dwarfs" in the American version, an unforgivable crime against philology.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:26 AM on February 27, 2019
(Imagine how different today's pop culture would look if The Hobbit hadn't found a publisher.)
posted by praemunire at 12:59 PM on February 25
Gosh darn it. The Hobbit did have a publisher. Ballantine LITERALLY PIRATED the book for publication in the U.S., much to J.R.R. Tolkien's dismay and ire -- not least due to them changing the plural "dwarves" to "dwarfs" in the American version, an unforgivable crime against philology.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:26 AM on February 27
Some links:
The Hobbit had been published all along in the US by Houghton Mifflin in hardcover.
What heatherlogan is thinking of is when Ace Books pirated The Lord of the Rings for a mass market paperback edition using what it considered to be a copyright loophole. Ballantine then came out with an authorized edition the next year with a message from Tolkien asking his fans to buy it instead of Ace's, which succeeded wildly.
posted by Fukiyama at 9:05 AM on February 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:59 PM on February 25
Gosh darn it. The Hobbit did have a publisher. Ballantine LITERALLY PIRATED the book for publication in the U.S., much to J.R.R. Tolkien's dismay and ire -- not least due to them changing the plural "dwarves" to "dwarfs" in the American version, an unforgivable crime against philology.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:26 AM on February 27
Some links:
The Hobbit had been published all along in the US by Houghton Mifflin in hardcover.
What heatherlogan is thinking of is when Ace Books pirated The Lord of the Rings for a mass market paperback edition using what it considered to be a copyright loophole. Ballantine then came out with an authorized edition the next year with a message from Tolkien asking his fans to buy it instead of Ace's, which succeeded wildly.
posted by Fukiyama at 9:05 AM on February 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
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