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 Asimov
had, at this time, published 31 short stories. John W. Campbell was Asimov's
hero and mentor, and Asimov always tried to sell his stories to Campbell
first.
On March 17, 1941,
Asimov went to Campbell and pitched a story idea that Campbell rejected,
not because it was such a bad idea, but because the Emerson quotation
was obsessing him.
In this now-famous
conversation, Campbell brought up the Emerson quotation (from "Nature")
which eventually became the story's epigraph. Campbell asked Asimov what
he thought would happen if the stars behaved in such a fashion.
In his autobiography
Asimov says he drew a blank, and Campbell remarked "I think [men]
would go mad. I want you to write a story about that." Asimov went home and
wrote the story.
Over Asimov's objections Campbell added the references to Earth at the
very end of the story.
Campbell paid Asimov
a bonus for the story.
"Nightfall"
was Asimov's fifth sale to Campbell and his first cover story.
In a column printed
in his own magazine in April 1986 Asimov suggested that Campbell had read
a nonfiction discussion of that same Emerson quotation in the magazine
Sky
in 1937; since Campbell himself did not seem to know the origin of the
quotation, Asimov may be right.
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