On This Day: Richard Evans

Twenty-one years ago today, former Gollancz editor and founder of Orbit, Richard Evans passed away. From The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:

(1950-1996) UK sf editor for various London publishers: Futura – where he launched the Orbit sf imprint – in the 1970s, Hutchinson/Arrow until 1983, and finally Gollancz, where he remained a senior editor until his death. At Arrow he edited, anonymously, two sf anthologies for the children’s imprint Sparrow: Peter Davison’s Book of Alien Monsters (anth 1982) and Peter Davison’s Book of Alien Planets (anth 1983). The stories were supposedly chosen by Peter Davison, then playing the fifth Doctor Who, whose name is the only connection with the television series. Each book includes a story by Evans himself under the pseudonym Stephen David. Evans received a special World Fantasy Award in 1996 for his editorial work.

As a short-term memorial, the juried Richard Evans Award was inaugurated in 1999 to honour established and active authors whose critical acclaim outstrips their commercial success: this was presented to M John Harrison in 1999, Gwyneth Jones in 2001 and Pat Cadigan in 2006.