"That Only a Mother"

1948 Merril, Judith [Josephine Juliet Grossman] (1923-97). “That Only a Mother.” Astounding Science Fiction (New York) 41.4 (June 1948): 88-95. Rpt. in Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One. The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of The Science Fiction Writers of America. Ed. Robert Silverberg (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 279-87; in Homecalling and Other Stories: The Complete Solo Short Science Fiction of Judith Merril. Ed. Elisabeth Carey (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2005), 11-19; in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 211-20 with an editors’ note on 211-12; in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 433-34 with an editor’s note on 433; and in The Future is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin. Ed. Lisa Yaszek (New York: Library of America, 2018), 88-100. Additional material, including biographies, can be found at womenSF.loa.org. Merril, PSt

Dystopian background to a story about the deformities and mutations brought about by a nuclear war. The female author (born Josephine Juliet Grossman) moved from the U.S. to Canada in 1968.