Science fiction author Andre Norton has died at the age of 93 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Over a career spanning seven decades, Norton's novels introduced many young people to science fiction and fantasy. In a genre long dominated by men, Norton was the first significant female science fiction writer. Among her best-known novels are Witch World, Beast Master, Secret of the Lost Race, Star Guard, Sargasso of Space (as Andrew North), The Time Traders, Catseye, Steel Magic, Fur Magic, and The Solar Queen.

The author was born as Alice Mary Norton on February 17, 1912 in Cleveland, Ohio. Her parents were Adalbert Freely Norton, who owned a rug company, and Bertha Stemm Norton. She began writing at Collingwood High School in Cleveland. She was the editor of a literary page in the school's paper called The Collingwood Spotlight for which she wrote short stories. During this time, she wrote her first book -- Ralestone Luck, which was eventually published as her second novel in 1938, the first being The Prince Commands in 1934. The Prince Commands, a historical fantasy, was Ms. Norton’s first published novel. It was released in 1934, when she was only twenty-two.

After graduating from high school in 1930, Norton planned to become a teacher and began studying at Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University. However, in 1932 she had to leave because of the Depression. She began working for the Cleveland Library System, where she remained for 18 years. In 1934, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton, a pen name she had adopted to increase her marketability, since boys were the main audience for fantasy. From 1940 to 1941, she worked as a special librarian in the cataloguing department of the Library of Congress, involved in a project related to alien citizenship. The project was abruptly terminated upon the American entry into World War II.

In 1941, she bought a bookstore called the Mystery House in Mount Rainier, Maryland. The business failed and she returned to the Cleveland Public Library until 1950. By this point, at age 38, she had nine novels to her credit. That year she left the Cleveland Public Library to take a job as a reader at Gnome Press. By the time she left Gnome Press eight years later, she had twenty-three novels and several short stories published.

In 1958, Norton became a full-time professional author. Over the next twenty years she wrote nearly seventy novels, two dozen short stories, and edited several anthologies. One of her most beloved series, Witch World -- a wondrous planet reachable through metaphysical gateways -- started with a single novel in 1963. More than thirty Witch World titles followed.

She was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies.

Norton moved to Winter Park, Florida in November 1966, and then in 1997 to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. From February 21, 2005, she was under hospice care. She died peacefully at home on March 17, 2005, of congestive heart failure.

Her last complete novel, Three Hands for Scorpio, will be released in early April from Tor Books. Return to Quag Keep, a sequel to her Quag Keep from 1979, will be released as a collaboration with Jean Rabe in January, 2006.

On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which had earlier honored her with its Grand Master Award in 1983, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the Young adult literature market, beginning in 2006.

Often called the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy by biographers such as J.M Cornwell and organizations such as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Publishers Weekly, and Time, Andre Norton wrote novels for over 70 years. She had a profound influence on the entire genre, having over 300 published titles read by at least four generations of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers.

-- March 19, 2005