Fritz Leiber, today best known as the author of the excellent sword-and-sorcery tales of
Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, died in 1992, at the age of 81, of "organic brain disease". I have no idea what that means. He was the son of the Shakespearean actor
Fritz Leiber, Sr., who is actually in the picture; I found this a lot more compelling than most photos of Fritz Jr.
Conjure Wife is the first of Leiber's stories that I've read which is set in the then-modern world. That it was published in 1953 (according to the copyright information), or 1943 even (when it was serialized), goes a long way toward explaining some of the book's more... politically awkward moments.
