David G. Compton, who wrote the NYRB Classic The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe under the name D. G. Compton, died in November 2023 at the age of 93, as The Guardian reports. Though Compton penned a nonfiction book (Stammering: Its Nature, History, Causes, and Cures), some crime fiction (as Guy Compton), and several works of Gothic romance (under the pen name Frances Lynch), he wrote most prolifically and impressively in the genre of science fiction.
In 2007, he was named as an Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and in 2021, he was awarded the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, which honors sci-fi and fantasy writers deserving of greater recognition. The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, which the Guardian obituary calls “his most accomplished novel,” was adapted into the film Death Watch by director Bertrand Tavernier in 1980.
To read the Guardian obituary and learn more about Compton’s life and work, click here.