Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011) was an American-born science fiction and fantasy writer, resident in Ireland from 1970, best known for the Dragonriders of Pern series and as the first woman to win both a Hugo and a Nebula award for fiction.

She was born on 1 April 1926 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and died on 21 November 2011 at her home in County Wicklow, Ireland. Her first novel, Restoree, was published by Ballantine Books in 1967. That year Analog printed "Weyr Search", the first Pern story, which won the 1968 Hugo for best novella; its follow-up "Dragonrider" won the Nebula for best novella. Ballantine combined the Pern stories into the novel Dragonflight in July 1968.

Pern became a long series, including Dragonquest (1971), The White Dragon (1978), the prequel Dragonsdawn (1988), All the Weyrs of Pern (1991) and The Skies of Pern (2001). For younger readers she wrote the Harper Hall trilogy: Dragonsong (1976), Dragonsinger (1977) and Dragondrums (1979). The Ship Who Sang (1969), about a disabled girl whose mind becomes the controlling intelligence of a starship, began her Brain & Brawn sequence. The Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 22nd Grand Master in 2005, and she entered the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006.

For collectors. Dragonflight first appeared as a Ballantine paperback original in July 1968; the first hardback edition did not follow until 1969. Copies of the 1968 paperback are the true first edition of the book that launched Pern, and the 1969 hardback is the first in cloth. Restoree (Ballantine, 1967) is her first novel.