completist n.

one who wishes to have or collect complete sets of some particular items

SF Fandom

  • 1944 J. B. Speer Fancyclopedia 13/1 Jack Speer bibliography

    Completist, a dope who tries to have a complete collection in some line. The line may be as broad as having all the prozines ever published, or as narrow as collecting all the Golden Atom tales or all official correspondence during ones incumbency in some office.

  • 1953 Science Fiction Newsletter Winter 13

    Ozzie needs little introduction, other than that he is the remaining half of Prime Press, and a genuine completist.

  • 1954 ‘A. Boucher’ Recommended Reading in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Dec. 91 Anthony Boucher

    Robert Shafer’s THE CONQUERED PLACE (Putnam’s, $3.50) is a long and pretentious ‘serious novel’ on the s.f. theme of the future occupation of the U.S. by an unnamed but obviously Russian military force, and I regret to say that it fails equally as fiction and as extrapolation; for completists only.

  • 1992 Science Fiction Age Nov. 16/3

    The imbalance in this ratio makes it hard for me to recommend this collection to anyone but Resnick completists, inveterate fans of ‘good-natured fluff’.

  • 1993 SFRA Rev. May 74

    This one for Bova completists and lovers of Analog -style short fiction.

  • 1994 Interzone Jan. 60/1

    Stretch-marked expansion of 1963 short story, readily available elsewhere… For completists only.

  • 1996 SFX May 89/5

    Have you already bought Whirlwind and Goblins? Are you the sort of completist who'd happily buy them again just because they've been repackaged as a single volume?

Research requirements

antedating 1944
Earliest cite

'J. Bristol' Fancyclopedia
Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a 1954 cite from a book review by Anthony Boucher. Bill Mullins submitted a cite from the Winter 1953 Science Fiction Newsletter, published by Bob Tucker. Geri Sullivan submitted a 1944 cite from the Fancyclopedia.

(Earliest cite in the OED database was from 1955).

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.