Robert Arthur, Jr. was born on November 10, 1909 at Fort Mills on Corregidor in the Phillipines to Robert Jay Arthur and Sarah Abbie (nee Fee). His father was a Lieutenant stationed there at the time. As his father was stationed in various places, Arthur grew up on the movie, in Massachusetts, Michigan, Kansas, and Virginia. He attended Hampton High School in Virginia and was elected Senior Class President.

Although accepted to West Point, Arthur chose not to follow in his father’s footsteps, instead enrolling at the College of William and Mary. After his sophomore year, he transferred to the University of Michigan, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1930. Following graduation, he worked briefly as an editor for Munsey Publications before returning to work toward his Master of Arts in Journalism, which he received from Michigan in 1932.

After earning his Master’s, Arthur moved to Greenwich Village and began writing stories for the pulp magazines, appearing in Wonder Stories, The Shadow, Argosy Weekly, Unknown Worlds, Black Mask, and more. He also worked for Dell Magazines as an editor and as an associate editor for Photo-Story.

His science fiction and fantasy began appearing in 1931 in Wonder Stories with “The Terror from the Sea” in the December issue. “The Psychic Typewriter” appeared in Ghosts and Goblins in 1938 under the pseudonym John West. Other stories included “The Professor’s Hobby,” “The Universe Broke Down,” “Calling All Corpses,” and “Time Dredge.”

In February 1938, he married Susan Smith Cleveland, a radio soap opera actress. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1940. In 1940s, Arthur took classes at Columbia University. In a short story class, he met Joan Vaczek and he met David Kogan in a radio writing class. He and Kogan would go on to become writing partners, eventually writing and producing the radio show The Mysterious Traveler.

Arthur married Joan in December 1946 in New York. They moved to Sharon, Connecticut before returning to New York and settling in Yorktown Heights. Their son, Robert Andrew Arthur, was born in 1948 and their daughter, Elizabeth Ann Arthur, was born in 1953. The couple divorced on June 13, 1960. Their son is the founder of StarWolf Media.

Arthur won the Edgar Award for his work on radio drama programming, in 1950 for Murder by Experts, and in 1953 for The Mysterious Traveler. In 1951, he won an Edgar for outstanding achievement in producing, directing and writing radio mystery shows. The Mysterious Traveler was cancelled in 195, partly because the radio stations believed the Radio Writers Guild, in which Kogan was active, was leading writers into communism.

Following his divorce from Joan, Arthur moved to Hollywood and began writing for television, although he had begun to have scripts produced as early as 1949. The 60s saw him writing for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, First Person, and Thriller. He also ghost-edited a variety of anthologies that were attributed to Hitchcock. He also wrote the young reader mystery series “Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators,” which were continued by other authors after his death.

Arthur died on May 2, 1969 in Philadelphia. He is buried in the West Laurell Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. His father died a year after he did and his mother died a year after Arthur’s father did.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-two-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.