Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010), R.I.P.

John Derbyshire gets it right.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3yqmb45

"When I came to try my own hand at writing a pop-math book, my publisher asked me to try to get blurbs from “mathematicians whose names are well-known to the general public.” That, I told them, is a set with a very small cardinal number. They said to just do my best. I naturally thought of Martin, and wrote him to ask for a blurb. I mentioned, as diffidently as I could, that I had given friendly reviews to a couple of his own books.

I received a very touching letter in reply. Martin’s wife had died a couple of years before, he said, and his grief had made it difficult for him to concentrate. He was trying out an anti-depressant medication, and really wasn’t up to reading a book with full attention just then. However, he had read some of my work, and trusted me sufficiently that I was welcome to write a blurb myself and attach his name to it. I duly did so..."