Theodore Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo on February 26,1918, in St. George on Staten Island, New York, to Edward Waldo, a paint salesman, and Christine Waldo, a teacher. In 1923, his parents separated, with his father leaving home; they eventually divorced. His mother married William D. Sturgeon in 1935, and Waldo legally changed his name to Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon. Accounts of how he came to be a writer vary considerably, from the fantastic (he tried writing only after giving up on becoming a circus acrobat) to the mundane (he needed money), but he first tried his hand at seamanship, attending Pennsylvania State Nautical School for one term in 1935 and working as a seaman from 1935 to 1938.

In 1937, Sturgeon sold his first published story to the McClure newspaper syndicate, and he sold forty stories from 1937 to 1939, mostly to McClure. With the sale of stories to the magazine Astounding...