DAW Books
Wollheim left Ace in 1971. Frederik Pohl describes the circumstances:
Unfortunately, when Wyn died the company was sold to a consortium headed by a bank. . . . Few of them had any publishing experience before they found themselves running Ace. It showed. Before long, bills weren't being paid, authors' advances and royalties were delayed, budgets were cut back, and most of Donald's time was spent trying to soothe authors and agents who were indignant, and had every right to be, at the way they were treated.
Upon leaving Ace, he founded DAW Books, named for his initials. DAW can claim to be the first mass market specialist science fiction and fantasy fiction publishing house. DAW issued its first four titles in April 1972. Most of the writers whom he had developed at Ace went with him to DAW: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, A. Bertram Chandler, Kenneth Bulmer, Gordon R. Dickson, A. E. van Vogt, and Jack Vance. In later years, when his distributor, New American Library, threatened to withhold Thomas Burnett Swann's Biblical fantasy How Are the Mighty Fallen (1974) because of its homosexual content, Wollheim fought vigorously against their decision. They relented.
His later author discoveries included Tanith Lee, Jennifer Roberson, Michael Shea, Ian Wallace, Tad Williams, Celia S. Friedman, and C. J. Cherryh, whose Downbelow Station (1982) was the first DAW book to win the Hugo Award for best novel. He was also able to give a number of British writers — Michael Moorcock, E. C. Tubb, Brian Stableford, Barrington Bayley, Michael Coney — a new American audience. He published translations of international sf as well as anthologies of translated stories, Best From the Rest of the World. With the help of Arthur W. Saha, Wollheim also edited and published the popular "Annual World's Best Science Fiction" anthology from 1971 until his death.
Robert Jordan credits Wollheim for helping to launch his (Jordan's) career. Wollheim made an offer for Jordan's first novel, Warriors of the Ataii, though he withdrew the offer when Jordan requested some minor changes to the contract. Jordan claims that Wollheim's first, 'laudatory' letter convinced him that he could write, and so he chose to remember the first letter and forget about the second. The novel was never published, but Jordan went on to write the immensely successful Wheel of Time series for a different publisher.
Marion Zimmer Bradley refers to him as "a second father," Frederik Pohl calls him "a founder," and Robert Silverberg says he was "seriously underrated" and "one of the great shapers of science-fiction publishing in the United States."
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