Editing Lin Carter (section)

==Career as editor and critic==
Carter was influential as a critic of contemporary fantasy and a pioneering historian of the genre. His book reviews and surveys of the year's best fantasy fiction appeared regularly in ''[[Castle of Frankenstein]]'', continuing after that magazine's 1975 demise in ''[[The Year's Best Fantasy Stories]]''. His early studies of the works of [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] (''[[Tolkien: A Look Behind "The Lord of the Rings"]]'') and [[H. P. Lovecraft]] (''[[Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos]]'') were followed up by the wide-ranging ''[[Imaginary Worlds – the Art of Fantasy|Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy]]'', a study tracing the emergence and development of modern fantasy from the late nineteenth century novels of [[William Morris]] through the 1970s. 
[[Peter Beagle]] faulted Carter's scholarship, saying "He gets so many facts embarrassingly wrong, so many attributions misquoted, that the entire commentary is essentially worthless."<ref>"Introduction", ''The Secret History of Fantasy'', Peter S. Beagle (ed), [[Tachyon Publications]] 2010.</ref>

His greatest influence in the field may have been as an editor for [[Ballantine Books]] from 1969 to 1974, when Carter brought several then obscure yet important books of fantasy back into print under the [[Ballantine Adult Fantasy series|"Adult Fantasy"]] line.<ref name=isfdb-series/> Authors whose works he revived included [[Lord Dunsany|Dunsany]], [[William Morris|Morris]], [[Clark Ashton Smith|Smith]], [[James Branch Cabell]], [[Hope Mirrlees]], and [[Evangeline Walton]]. [[David G. Hartwell]] praised the series, saying it brought "into mass editions nearly all the adult fantasy stories and novels worth reading."<ref>"The Making of the American Fantasy Genre", in ''The Secret History of Fantasy'', Peter S. Beagle (ed), Tachyon Publications 2010.</ref>  He also helped new authors break into the field, such as [[Katherine Kurtz]], [[Joy Chant]], and [[Sanders Anne Laubenthal]].

Carter was a fantasy anthologist of note, editing a number of new anthologies of classic and contemporary fantasy for Ballantine and other publishers. He also edited several anthology series, including the ''[[Flashing Swords!]]'' series from 1973 to 1981, the first six volumes of ''[[The Year's Best Fantasy Stories]]'' for [[DAW Books]] from 1975 to 1980, and an [[Weird Tales (anthology series)|anthology format revival]] of the classic fantasy magazine ''[[Weird Tales]]'' from 1981 to 1983.

Together with SAGA he sponsored the [[Gandalf Award]], an early fantasy equivalent to science fiction's [[Hugo Award]], for the recognition of outstanding merit in authors and works of fantasy. It was given annually by the [[World Science Fiction Society]] from 1974 to 1981, but went into abeyance with the collapse of Carter's health in the 1980s. Its primary purpose continues to be fulfilled by the initially rival [[World Fantasy Award]]s, first presented in 1975.