Willis E. McNelly

"[citation needed] Securing a doctorate in English literature from Northwestern University,[1] McNelly later edited the first university-level textbooks on science fiction as literature in the mid-1960s, in particular Above the Human Landscape and Mars, We Love You, co-edited with his fellow teacher, Jane Hipolito.

An "internationally recognized scholar and authority on the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, William Shakespeare and William Butler Yeats," McNelly was "best known for his pioneering efforts to win acceptance of science fiction as a serious form of modern literature.

[1] McNelly fostered the science fiction wing of the Cal State Fullerton Pollak Library where original manuscripts of many science fiction authors, including Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert, are located.

[2] Most of the over 5,000 science fiction books contained in the wing are from the combined collection of Willis Jr. and his father.

[3][4] McNelly died of cancer on April 7, 2003, at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California.