Unto The Fourth Generation - Background of Story Creation and Development

Background of Story Creation and Development

Asimov was having lunch with F&SF's then-editor Robert P. Mills on 23 October 1958 when Mills mentioned having seen the name Lefkowitz several times, each time with a different spelling. He asked Asimov to write a story about it, and Asimov agreed.

When "Unto the Fourth Generation" first appeared in F&SF, Marten went through the experience without being affected by it in any way. After the story appeared, Asimov was attending a dinner with Mills. He was chatting happily with Janet Jeppson, a fan he had just met, and Mills asked her what she thought of the story. Jeppson said that it was flawed because Marten had been unaffected by his meeting with Phinehas Levkovich. Asimov decided that Jeppson was right, and when he included the story in Nightfall and Other Stories, he changed the ending so that Marten was left with a feeling of well-being. Asimov and Jeppson kept in touch, and fourteen years after having dinner together, they got married.

Asimov commented that this story is the only Jewish story it occurred to him to write.

The name Levkovich (and its many variants) comes from the Polish name Lewek, a diminutive of Lew, meaning lion.

Nightfall and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov
  • "Nightfall"
  • "Green Patches"
  • "Hostess"
  • "Breeds There a Man...?"
  • "C-Chute"
  • "In a Good Cause—"
  • "What If—"
  • "Sally"
  • "Flies"
  • "Nobody Here But—"
  • "It's Such a Beautiful Day"
  • "Strikebreaker"
  • "Insert Knob A In Hole B"
  • "The Up-To-Date Sorcerer"
  • "Unto the Fourth Generation"
  • "What is This Thing Called Love?"
  • "The Machine that Won the War"
  • "My Son, the Physicist"
  • "Eyes Do More Than See"
  • "Segregationist"

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