Trap Door Spiders

The Trap Door Spiders were established by author Fletcher Pratt in 1944 to exclude operatic soprano Mildred Baldwin, in response to the June 7, 1943 marriage between Baldwin and Pratt's friend Dr. John D. Clark. Baldwin was unpopular with her husband's friends, despite their participation in the ceremony (Pratt's own wife Inga Stephens Pratt was matron of honor, and L. Sprague de Camp served as Clark's best man).{{harvp|Asimov|1994|pp=376–377}}{{cite news|title=Mildred Baldwin Bride: Opera Singer Wed to Dr. John D. Clark in Ceremony Here|newspaper=The New York Times|date=June 8, 1943| page= 24}} Pratt reasoned that the club would give them an excuse to spend time with Clark without Baldwin. The presidency of the club rotated among the members, the president for a given evening being the member who had volunteered to host the meeting by giving the dinner and supplying a guest. 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 dinner, given by the host for the evening, to which he would invite a guest who would 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. Coggins once invited Worthen Paxton, art director of Life Magazine, to a meeting.{{cite journal|last=Miller|first= Ron|title=Jack Coggins|department= Interview and article|journal=Outre Magazine|issue= 23|date= 2001| pages= 42–49}} 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.{{harvp|Asimov|1994|pp=538–539}} According to L. Sprague de Camp, the club was "still thriving" as of 1996.

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Membership of the club was by invitation, and varied as some Trap Door Spiders died or moved away (or in at least one instance was dropped by the consensus of the other members) and as others were admitted on the nomination of existing members. Men known to have been members of the club include:

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• John Ashmead (1917–1992), author, English professor
• Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), author
• Don Bensen (1927–1997), editor{{harvp|Asimov|1994|p=378}}
• Gilbert Cant (1909–1982), editor
• Lin Carter (1930–1988), author
• Lionel Casson (1914–2009), archaeologist{{harvp|Asimov|1994|pp=377–378}}
• John Drury Clark (1907–1988), chemist
• Jack Coggins (1911–2006), artist, author
• L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000), author
• Lester del Rey (1915–1993), author, editor
• Kenneth Franklin (1923–2007), astronomer, educator
• Martin Gardner (1914–2010), math & science writer{{harvp|Gardner|2013|p=147}}{{cite web|last=Albers|first= Don|url=http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/10/the-martin-gardner-interview-part-4/|title= The Martin Gardner Interview Part 4|website=fifteen eightyfour: Academic Perspectives from Cambridge University Press (blog)|date= October 10, 2008}}
• Richard Edes Harrison (1901–1994), cartographer
• Stefan Kanfer (1933–2018), journalist, author{{harvp|Gardner|2013| page= 148}}
• Charles H. King (1934–2017), novelist{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}}
• Caleb Barrett Laning (1906–1991), admiral, writer{{cite news|last=Levy|first= Claudia|title=Decorated Rear Adm. Caleb B. Laning Dies|newspaper=The Washington Post|date= June 8, 1991| page= B6}}
• Willy Ley (1906–1969), science writer{{harvp|De Camp|De Camp|1996|page=362}}
• Jean Le Corbeiller (1937–2010), math professor{{harvp|De Camp|De Camp|1996|page=265}}
• Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956), author{{cite news|title=Fletcher Pratt, Historian, Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|date= June 11, 1956| page= 30}}
• George Scithers (1929–2010), author, editorScithers, George. "George Scithers," in "[http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0704/editorial.shtml Editorial: In Memories Yet Green by Isaac Asimov, George Scithers, Kathleen Moloney, Shawna McCarthy, Gardner Dozois, and Sheila Williams]," Asimov's Science Fiction, April/May 2007, p. 4. {{web archive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070626094052/https://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0704/editorial.shtml|date=26 Jun 2007}}{{cite web|last=Glyer|first= Mike|url=http://file770.com/?p=3841|title= Martin Gardner Dies|website=File 770: Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom (blog)|date=May 25, 2010}}
• L. Roper Shamhart (1926–2017), Episcopal minister
• John Silbersack (b. 1954), publisher, agent{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}}
• George O. Smith (1911–1981), author{{cite web |url=http://itricks.com/randishow/?p=7 |title=The Amazing Show: Isaac Asimov and the Trapdoor Spiders (at 3:40) |publisher=iTricks.com |date=11 October 2007}}
• Harrison Smith, publisher
• Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985), author
• Donald Wilde (1926–2015), ad executive, playwright{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}}
• Robert Zicklin, lawyer{{harvp|Asimov|1994|p=468}}

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According to magician and skeptic James Randi, other prominent figures attending Trap Door Spiders meetings included authors Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) and L. Ron Hubbard, as well as Randi himself.{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj-w09kpQcY#t=01m48s |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/Oj-w09kpQcY |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|title=James Randi talking about the Trap Door Spiders (starting at 1:48) |publisher=YouTube.com |date=13 February 1999}}{{cbignore}} All three appear to have attended as guests rather than members (Pohl in particular has written he was never a member),{{cite web|last=Pohl|first= Frederik|date=2009|url=http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2011/06/the-trapdoor-spiders/|title= The Trap Door Spiders|website=TheWayTheFutureBlogs.com|quote=Although Wikipedia appears to think I was a member, I never was.}} though Randi did consider himself an "honorary" member.{{cite web |url=http://itricks.com/randishow/?p=7 |title=The Amazing Show: Isaac Asimov and the Trapdoor Spiders (at 3:13) |publisher=iTricks.com |date=11 October 2007}}

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 are fictionalized in L. Sprague de Camp's historical novel The Bronze God of Rhodes (1960) as "The Seven Strangers," a social club holding symposia in the ancient Greek city-state of Rhodes. Such Spider elements as the rotating presidency and the question put to guests are faithfully represented in the practices of the Strangers.

The club was also the inspiration for Isaac Asimov's fictional group of puzzle solvers the Black Widowers, protagonists of a long-running series of mystery short stories beginning in 1971.{{harvp|Asimov|1994|p=373}} 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:

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• Geoffrey Avalon (L. Sprague de Camp)
• Emmanuel Rubin (Lester del Rey)
• James Drake (John Drury Clark)

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• Thomas Trumbull (Gilbert Cant)
• Mario Gonzalo (Lin Carter)
• Roger Halsted (Don Bensen)

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Other non-fictional men, including members of the Spiders and others, also occasionally appeared in the series in fictional guise. These included Fletcher Pratt (albeit deceased and offstage) as Widowers founder Ralph Ottur in the story "To the Barest,"{{cite book|last=Asimov|first= Isaac|chapter=To the Barest, Afterword|title=Casebook of the Black Widowers|location= New York|publisher= Doubleday|date= 1980}} and (as guests) Asimov himself (in a humorously unflattering portrayal) as arrogant author Mortimer Stellar in "When No Man Pursueth",{{harvp|Asimov|1994|pp=378–379}} James Randi as stage magician The Amazing Larri in "The Cross of Lorraine",{{cite book|last=Asimov|first= Isaac|title=In Joy Still Felt|location= New York|publisher= Doubleday|date= 1980|chapter= chapter 41, section 19}} and Harlan Ellison as writer Darius Just (a character who first appeared as protagonist of Asimov's 1976 mystery novel Murder at the ABA) in "The Woman in the Bar."{{cite book|last=Asimov|first= Isaac|chapter=The Woman in the Bar, Afterword|title=Banquets of the Black Widowers|location=New York|publisher= Doubleday|date= 1984| page= 36}}

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.

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{Cite book |last=Asimov |first=Isaac |title=I. Asimov: a memoir |date=1994 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0-385-41701-3 |edition=1st |location=New York}}
• {{Cite book |last=De Camp |first=L. Sprague |title=Time & chance: an autobiography |last2=De Camp |first2=Catherine Crook |date=1996 |publisher=Donald M. Grant, Publisher |isbn=978-1-880418-32-1 |edition=1st |location=Hampton Falls, NH}}
• {{Cite book |last=Gardner |first=Martin |title=Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071015092846/http://heartstorming.com/archives/2006/05/why_do_you_exist_trap_door_spider_society.html Ian Summers' account of a Trap Door Spiders meeting at which he and the Amazing Randi were guests in the mid-1970s]

Category:Science fiction organizations

Category:Writing circles

Category:Culture of New York City

Category:Organizations established in 1944

Category:1944 establishments in New York City

Category:Men's organizations in the United States