Harry Warner, Jr. was a prominent science fiction fan from Hagerstown, Maryland.
Though he almost never attended conventions — which led to his earning the nickname "The Hermit of Hagerstown" — he became revered in the fandom community over many years for his letter-writing. It is estimated Warner wrote literally tens of thousands of letters to numerous science fiction fanzines and related publications within the genre, and his reputation became such that nearly every fanzine publisher in the country would send him a free copy of their zine as a matter of course. Without fail, Warner would dutifully read the zine and send a lengthy and thoughtful letter. Many fanzine editors have described getting their first letter from Warner as something like a rite of passage.
Warner authored a book entitled All Our Yesterdays, about the earliest days of science fiction fandom in the 1930s, a period known as the genre's "Golden Age". The book is considered a classic nonfiction work in the field, as it is one of the only published histories of that seminal time. In the 1950s, Warner tried his hand at science fiction itself, publishing a series of short stories in various magazines throughout the decade.
Such was Warner's erudition that he is known to have taught himself no fewer than seven languages.
Warner, who spent most of his professional life working for the Hagerstown Herald-Mail, died February 17, 2003 at the age of 80.
