“Without doubt, L. Ron Hubbard is one of the most prolific and influential writers of the 20th century.” — Stephen V. Whaley, Ph.D., Professor of English and Foreign Languages


Ron’s Greenwich village apartment at 40 King Street.


New York City, 1936. L. Ron Hubbard as president of the American Fiction Guild What Scientology offers is what one would expect from a man such as L. Ron Hubbard. For not only does it provide a fully unique approach to our most fundamental questions — Who are we? From where did we come and what is our destiny? — but it further provides an equally unique technology for greater spiritual awareness. So how would we expect to characterize the founder of such a religion? Clearly, he would have to be larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, and a consummate professional in dozens of fields — all exactly L. Ron Hubbard.

The fact is, if Mr. Hubbard had stopped after only one of his many accomplishments he would still be celebrated today. With such monumental bestsellers to his credit as Battlefield Earth, Fear and the Mission Earth series, Mr. Hubbard is one of the most widely read authors of all time. Forty of his novels have appeared on bestseller lists and have earned some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards. He has been genuinely described as “one of the most prolific and influential writers of the twentieth century.”

In point of fact, between 1933 and 1940 Mr. Hubbard spent six months out of each year in New York, where he penned over 2 million words of fiction. While writing to finance his early researches into the mind and life, L. Ron Hubbard, as the president of the New York Chapter of the Fiction Guild, nurtured aspiring writers with his advice and articles that headlined the writing publications of the day. This legacy of lending a helping hand to new writers continued throughout L. Ron Hubbard’s life and in testament to this is the world renowned L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, started in 1984 by Mr. Hubbard as the means to get new and unpublished authors their break. The results have turned the world of fiction on its ear. Hundreds of winners and contestants from the contest are now New York Times and international bestsellers. This legacy to the arts continues to this day.

His other early accomplishments are similarly impressive. As a barnstorming aviator through the 1930s, he was known as “Flash” and broke local records for sustained glider flight. As a leader of expeditions, he is credited with conducting the first complete Puerto Rican mineralogical survey under United States protectorship and his navigational annotations still influence the maritime guides for British Columbia. And as a member of the world-renowned New York-based Explorers Club, which included such luminaries as Admiral Byrd and Sir Edmund Hillary, he carried the organization’s flag on three separate expeditions. Mr. Hubbard kept the Explorers Club as his permanent address for the rest of his life.