Robert Anson Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907, in the small town of Butler, Missouri. One of seven children, he was particularly attached to his grandfather, a doctor who appears as a wise old man in many of Heinlein's novels. After graduating from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he served in the United States Navy until tuberculosis forced him to retire from active duty in 1934.

From 1934 to 1939 Heinlein was active in politics and silver mining, and pursued graduate studies in physics and mathematics at UCLA. He was forced to drop out before earning his degree because of a recurrence of his illness. In 1939 he wrote his first science fiction story, "Life-Line," and submitted it to John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding Science-Fiction, the most reputable science fiction magazine of that period.

In the following years, Heinlein published a substantial number of short stories in...