The Birth of Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard
A rare look at the 1939 letters that capture the writing of a science fiction classic.
In the late 1930s, L. Ron Hubbard retained a semi-permanent residence in New York City. Beyond his regular correspondence with editors, he kept in touch with friends and family back in Montana and Washington. The letters now provide a candid view into his daily life and writing process.
Over nineteen days in October 1939, Ron wrote what would become Final Blackout—a story that would leave a lasting mark on science fiction. In the letters that follow, he mentions the work, offering a rare glimpse into the birth of a classic. Originally intended as a shorter piece, Final Blackout expanded into a novel that was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction across three issues in 1940. Editor John W. Campbell Jr. introduced it with this: “H.G. Wells never wrote anything more powerful than Final Blackout.”
Upon publication, readers were no less enthusiastic. One wrote, “If L. Ron Hubbard never writes another story, he will have his place in the Hall of Fame.” Another named it “top story of the year.” One even composed a poem in tribute to the Lieutenant, which was published in Astounding.
A novel that remains as timely and powerful today as when it first appeared, it has remained in print ever since, its legacy growing with time. As fellow author Robert A. Heinlein put it, Final Blackout is “as perfect a piece of science fiction as has ever been written.”
Read the letters below that mark the moment a masterpiece came into being.
HOTEL KNICKERBOCKER
New York City
October 12, 1939
Yesterday I heard that John had bought my last and so I am starting today on BLACKOUT, a story of Europe after the war is done.
And so, beginning, I found that the typewriter wasn’t working any too well. A mechanic had cleaned it a week or two ago and it hadn’t worked right after that. So I made adjustments in tensions and now I feel like I am all thumbs on it. In fact I have never had it run quite so badly—which is encouraging when one is about to begin on a long one. However I suppose it will mainly be a matter of learning the new touch, and the old one was very, very bad.
I think I should probably do better to write this one in pencil and then copy it as I go along. That is a terrible lot of work but, somehow, I seem to get more kick out of writing that way. It does not take me very long to turn them out on the typewriter but neither, anymore, are they so very good.
Here it is almost supper time and I have not yet started my story. I must have worked on this mill for something like four hours and as yet I haven’t gotten the touch right. But poor old Inky just had to be cleaned. I wish, when they go about fixing this mill, the mechanics would leave the tensions alone. But they never do.
I have supper with Matt during the first four evenings of the week. Then he takes off for Penna and appears again on Monday, having left Friday afternoon. In about ten days I am going down with him for a weekend, but I have to get out two stories first, each twenty thousand words. This BLACKOUT and then one for Florence.
The same old story, over and over. Write a yarn, disburse funds, think up a yarn, write a yarn.……Lord!
I think I’ll get my shoes on (still a hillbilly) and go down to dinner. Matt ought to be around about now.
Ron
HOTEL KNICKERBOCKER
October 23, 1939
I am going on and on with this story BLACKOUT and it looks as though it may be a book between covers. It is already too long for John, though he doesn’t know it, so I shall probably sell it to ARGOSY and then to a publisher.
Ron
HOTEL KNICKERBOCKER
Oct. 31, 1939 9:30 PM
I have just finished dinner, having finished my story not an hour and a half ago. I loafed along on the end of it, probably because I shall now have to do one for Florence about air-war over the North Sea. By God they better not call off this war and make a liar out of me! I have made my second story hinge on it.
An idea occurred to me the other eve for a fantastic short. Prof. Mudge comes back, in trouble again. And this time he is in real trouble for he had found how to control his looks and only needs a model to look just like it. So he walks into a phone booth as a man and, having seen a photo of a girl, comes out a woman. And then, when he isn’t keeping tab on himself, glances at a cop and becomes a duplicate. And then when he uses Public Enemy Number One as an inadvertent model……
Ron
Matt: Hubert “Matty” Mathieu (1897–1954). American painter, sculptor, illustrator, lecturer and writer. Mathieu created a wide variety of art and was well known for producing illustrations for magazines and newspapers, as well as for his portraits.⬆︎
Florence: Florence McChesney, editor of the pulp magazine Five-Novels Monthly. ⬆︎
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