Jones, Langdon
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1942-2021) UK short-story author, editor and musician, strongly associated with New Worlds during its New-Wave period both as contributor – he published most of his sf stories there, beginning with "Stormwater Tunnel" in the July/August 1964 issue – and in various editorial capacities including assistant editor and (for four issues April-July 1969) editor. His most memorable work, most of it experimental in form and characterized by a strongly angular narrative style, was assembled as The Eye of the Lens (coll 1972); the lead story "The Great Clock" (March 1966 New Worlds) is a powerful metaphor of man's slavery to Time, with eventual rebellion achieving only a disastrous End of Time.
Jones's wide taste as an editor was demonstrated in The New SF: An Original Anthology of Modern Speculative Fiction (anth 1969), a key work of the New Wave; he also collaborated with Michael Moorcock in assembling The Nature of the Catastrophe (anth 1971; exp vt The New Nature of the Catastrophe 1993), which contained a number of Jerry Cornelius stories from New Worlds written by Moorcock and others. The first published version of Mervyn Peake's Titus Alone (1959) had been heavily edited because of Peake's degenerative illness, and Jones was responsible for the reconstruction work resulting in the posthumous 1970 publication of the definitive version of the book. [JC]
see also: Arts; Fantastic Metropolis; Jerry Cornelius, Music.
Langdon Richard Jones
born Dover, Kent: March 1942
died Bracknell, Berkshire: September 2021
works
- The Eye of the Lens (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972) [coll: hb/Richard Jones]
works as editor
- The New SF: An Original Anthology of Modern Speculative Fiction (London: Hutchinson, 1969) [anth: hb/Colin Mier]
- The Nature of the Catastrophe (London: Hutchinson, 1971) with Michael Moorcock [anth: hb/Mal Dean]
- The New Nature of the Catastrophe (London: Millennium, 1993) with Michael Moorcock [anth: rev vt of the above: hb/Mark Reeve]
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