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Trap Door Spiders
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The Trap Door Spiders are a literary male-only eating, drinking, and arguing society in New York City, with a membership historically composed of notable science fiction personalities. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it.
Trap Door Spiders were established by author Fletcher Pratt in 1944, in response to the June 7, 1943 marriage of his friend Dr. John D. Clark to operatic soprano Mildred Baldwin.
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Encyclopedia
The Trap Door Spiders are a literary male-only eating, drinking, and arguing society in New York City, with a membership historically composed of notable science fiction personalities. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it.
History and practices
The Trap Door Spiders were established by author Fletcher Pratt in 1944, in response to the June 7, 1943 marriage of his friend Dr. John D. Clark to operatic soprano Mildred Baldwin. The new Mrs. Clark was unpopular with her husband's friends, despite their participation in the ceremony (Pratt's own wife was matron of honor, and L. Sprague de Camp served as Clark's best man). Pratt reasoned that the club would give them an excuse to spend time with him without her. Over the course of its existence the Trap Door Spiders has counted among its members numerous professional men, many of them writers and editors active in the science fiction genre, along with some prominent fans such as Dr. Clark.
The get-togethers of the Trap Door Spiders followed a set format, which remained consistent through the years; a meal, to which a guest would be invited by one of the members to be grilled by the others and form the focus of conversation for the evening. The grilling was traditionally begun by the host for the evening enquiring of the guest "How do you justify your existence?" or some variation, such as "Why do you exist?" Jack Coggins remembers that an editor for Reader's Digest went home from a meeting in tears after a brutally personal grilling. As of 1976, the club met roughly one Friday a month, eight or nine times a year, and maintained a membership of thirteen, among whom the privilege of hosting the meetings rotated. The host of a given meeting selected the restaurant, wine, and menu for the evening, and had the option of inviting one or two guests he believed might prove interesting to the other members.
The group remained active through at least January 16, 1990, when its members attended a party given by Doubleday for Isaac Asimov at Tavern on the Green in New York City. The event commemorated Asimov's seventieth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of the publication of his first book.
Membership
Membership in the club varied as some Trap Door Spiders died or moved away and others were admitted on the nomination of existing members. People known to have been members of the club include:
- Isaac Asimov, author
- Don Bensen, editor
- Gilbert Cant, editor
- Lin Carter, author
- Lionel Casson, archaeologist
- John D. Clark, chemist
- Jack Coggins, artist and author
- L. Sprague de Camp, author
- Lester del Rey, author and editor
- Kenneth Franklin, astronomer and educator
- Martin Gardner, mathematics and science writer
- Richard Harrison, cartographer
- Caleb Barrett Laning, naval officer and writer
- Willy Ley, science writer
- Jean Le Corbeiller, mathematics teacher
- Frederik Pohl, author and editor.
- Fletcher Pratt, author
- James Randi, stage magician and scientific skeptic.
- George H. Scithers, author and editor
- Roper Shamhart, Episcopalian minister
- George O. Smith, author
- Robert Zicklin, lawyer
Owing to the writings of Isaac Asimov (see below), those most closely associated with the group are Bensen, Cant, Carter, Clark, de Camp, del Rey, and Asimov himself.
The Trap Door Spiders in fiction
The Trap Door Spiders are notable as the inspiration for Isaac Asimov's fictional group of puzzle solvers the Black Widowers, protagonists of a long-running series of mystery short stories. Asimov, a Boston resident who was often an invited guest of the Trap Door Spiders when in New York, became a permanent member of the club when he moved to the area in 1970.
Asimov loosely modeled his fictional "Black Widowers" on six of the real-life Trap Door Spiders. He gave his characters professions somewhat more varied than those of their models, while retaining aspects of their personalities and appearances. Asimov's characters and their real-life counterparts are:
Fletcher Pratt was also fictionalized (albeit deceased and offstage) as Ralph Ottur in the story "To the Barest." Asimov once even wrote himself into a Black Widowers story (as guest Mortimer Stellar in "When No Man Pursueth") in a humorously unflattering portrayal. The remaining member of the Widowers, the group's waiter and unfailing sleuth Henry Jackson, was completely fictional, though Asimov did liken the character to that of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves from the Bertie Wooster novels.
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