British SF Conventions
Volume 4: 1958-1965
Rob Hansen

ISBN 978-1-916508-25-5 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-916508-26-2 (ebook)

Ansible Editions, December 2024

Cover photo: Jimmy Groves, Ted Forsyth and Ethel Lindsay in the convention hall at LXIcon, the 1961 Eastercon held in Gloucester. Photographer: Terry Jeeves.

The trade paperback British SF Conventions Volume 4: 1958-1965 is released in December 2025 simultaneously with the ebook. 245 paperback pages; 116,000 words. All proceeds from sales go to the TransAtlantic Fan Fund.

This is chronologically the fourth volume in Rob Hansen’s history of the early UK science fiction conventions, though the fifth to be published. As in other such fanhistorical compilations, the story is told in the participants’ and observers’ own words, with explanatory and bridging commentary by Rob Hansen himself. This was a golden age of humorous convention reporting, with many laugh-out-loud observations. Guests of Honour during this period included Kingsley Amis, E.J. (Ted) Carnell of New Worlds, and Bruce Montgomery alias Edmund Crispin. Also on the scene, both as striving professionals and badly behaved fans, were Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison and Michael Moorcock.

The current set of five books is as follows (a sixth may or may not be added):

1. British SF Conventions Volume 1: 1937-1951 (2023)
2. British SF Conventions Volume 2: 1952-1957 (2024)
3. 1957 – The First UK Worldcon (2022)
4. British SF Conventions Volume 4: 1958-1965 – You Are Here
5. 1965 – The Second UK Worldcon (2023)

Rob Hansen says:

Among the burning questions of the day that are fully and frankly answered in this volume are...

• WHO was shut in an author’s wardrobe by two other authors?
• WHICH was the only Eastercon to be named after a fan?
• WHEN did a convention lose its hotel days before the event?
• WHAT is the Doc Weir Award?
• HOW did newcomers usurp the old guard?
• WHO was seen copyediting the Bible?

1963 programme book cover art by Eddie Jones.