Fritz Leiber

Leiber had German roots. His parents were both Shakespearean actors. Leiber studied philosophy and psychology at the University of Chicago. In 1936, he married Welsh poet Jonquil Stephens. She brought to Leiber's attention the author H. P. Lovecraft, with whom he subsequently corresponded intensively for eight months until Lovecraft's death in 1937. Leiber enjoyed a reputation, especially in the U.S. as an author of idiosyncratic, detailed Weird Fiction since about the mid-1950s.