Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. She was noted for the feminist perspective in her writing.
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer
June 3, 1930
Albany, New York, U.S.
September 25, 1999 (aged 69)
Berkeley, California, U.S.
Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, Lee Chapman
David Bradley, Moira Greyland, Mark Greyland
Bradley began writing at the age of 17 and later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hardin-Simmons University. She co-founded the Society for Creative Anachronism in 1966. She also served as the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series. She was posthumously awarded the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 2000.
In 1990, Bradley's husband, Walter Breen, was arrested for child sexual abuse. Though Bradley remained popular during her lifetime, her reputation was posthumously marred. In 2014, 15 years after Bradley's death, her daughter Moira Greyland said that Bradley not only had been aware of Breen's child molestation activities but had also sexually abused her. In response to the allegations, the publisher of Bradley's digital backlist began donating all income from her e-books to the charity Save the Children. Several science fiction authors have since publicly condemned Bradley.
Personal life[edit]
Born Marion Eleanor Zimmer on June 3, 1930, she lived on a farm in Albany, New York, and began writing at the age of 17.[1] She was married to Robert Alden Bradley from October 26, 1949, until their divorce on May 19, 1964. They had a son, David Robert Bradley (1950–2008). During the 1950s she was introduced to lesbian advocacy organization the Daughters of Bilitis.[2]
After her divorce, Bradley married numismatist Walter H. Breen on June 3, 1964. They had a daughter, Moira Greyland, who is a professional harpist and singer,[3] and a son, Mark Greyland.[4] Moira's son, RJ Stern, is a college football player who was featured on season 5 of Last Chance U on Netflix.[5]
In 1965, Bradley graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. Afterward, she moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley between 1965 and 1967. In 1966, with her brother Paul Edwin Zimmer, she helped found and name the Society for Creative Anachronism and was involved in developing several local groups, some in New York after her move to Staten Island.[6][7]
Bradley and Breen separated in 1979 but remained married, and continued a business relationship and lived on the same street for over a decade. They officially divorced on May 9, 1990, the year Breen was arrested on child molestation charges after a 13-year-old boy reported that Breen had been molesting him for four years.[8] She had edited Breen's book Greek Love (published pseudonymously), which was dedicated to her (named simply as "[his] wife"), and in 1965 had contributed an article, "Feminine Equivalents of Greek Love in Modern Literature", to Breen's journal The International Journal of Greek Love.[9][10] She allegedly had knowledge of Breen's sexual interests and was said to have accepted his sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.[11]
Religion[edit]
While she was attending the College for Teachers (now University at Albany, SUNY) in Albany, Bradley became involved in Western esoteric tradition. She later completed a Rosicrucian correspondence course.[7]
In the late 1950s or early 1960s, Bradley and Walter H. Breen founded the Aquarian Order of the Restoration based on the work of Dion Fortune.[7][22] By 1961 she was formally initiating others, including Ramfis S. Firethorn.[23]: 313
Bradley was active in Darkmoon Circle, which was founded in 1978 by several women who were members of her Aquarian Order of the Restoration. Bradley renovated her garage to provide a meeting room for Darkmoon Circle as well as for other local Pagan groups.[24] In 1981 Bradley, Diana L. Paxson, and Elisabeth Waters incorporated the Center for Non-Traditional Religion.[7]
In the 1990s Bradley said she would return to Christianity, telling an interviewer: "I just go regularly to the Episcopalian church ... That pagan thing ... I feel that I've gotten past it. I would like people to explore the possibilities."[25]
Death[edit]
After suffering declining health for years, Bradley died at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a heart attack.[1] Her ashes were later scattered at Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England.[23]: 28–29
Child sex abuse allegations[edit]
In 2000, shortly after Bradley's death, author Stephen Goldin, the stepfather of a boy who had been molested by Walter Breen, started a website claiming that Bradley had been fully aware of her husband's crimes and made no effort to report them or protect his victims.[26]
In 2014, Moira Greyland, the daughter of Bradley and Breen, accused Bradley of sexual abuse from the age of 3 to 12. In an email to The Guardian, Greyland said that she had not spoken out before because "I thought that my mother's fans would be angry with me for saying anything against someone who had championed women's rights and made so many of them feel differently about themselves and their lives. I didn't want to hurt anyone she had helped, so I just kept my mouth shut".[27]
Greyland also confirmed Goldin's statements by saying that Bradley was aware of her husband's behavior and chose not to report him.[26] Greyland reported that she was not the only victim and that she was one of the people who reported her father for child molestation, for which he received multiple convictions.[27][28][29]
In December 2017 Bradley's daughter published a detailed biography of her mother, including her pedophilia and sexual abuse, in a book entitled The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon.[30]
Additionally, according to Greyland, Bradley assisted Breen (her husband at the time) in accessing and abusing multiple unrelated young boys, knowing he was a pedophile who was engaging in sexual contact with children as young as eight. Greyland states that Bradley and her live-in female partner (whom Greyland refers to as her step-mother) both admitted to knowledge of the abuse and purposefully avoided investigating, questioning, or notifying any authorities. Bradley was also accused of attempting to adopt a child whom Breen was interested in sexually.[31]
In response to these allegations, on July 2, 2014, Victor Gollancz Ltd, the publisher of Bradley's digital backlist, began donating all income from the sales of Bradley's e-books to the charity Save the Children.[32] Janni Lee Simner donated advances and royalties from her two Darkover short stories and, at the request of her husband, Larry Hammer, payment for his sale to Bradley's magazine, to the American anti-sexual assault organization Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.[33]
A number of science fiction authors have publicly condemned Bradley. Among the first was John Scalzi, who expressed his horror within a day of the allegations being made public.[34] Hugo Award winner Jim C. Hines wrote that Bradley's positive effect on her readers and associates "makes the revelations about Marion Zimmer Bradley protecting a known child rapist and molesting her own daughter and others even more tragic."[35] G Willow Wilson, who along with Bradley is a fellow World Fantasy Award winner, said she was "speechless".[36] Diana L. Paxson, who collaborated with Bradley on a number of novels and who continued to write novels set in the Avalon Series after Bradley's death, said that she was "shocked and appalled to read Moira Greyland's posts about her mother... I never personally observed, nor had any reason to suspect, that (Bradley) was abusing either of her children."[37]
