Hubbard published his first fiction in 1934 and wrote at industrial speed through the pulp era before Dianetics made him famous in 1950. The church's biography of him is extensive and disputed at almost every point by journalists and by court findings — on his war record, his qualifications and his finances. What is not in dispute is the volume: the corpus of bulletins, policy letters and recorded lectures is enormous, and the doctrine that it may not be altered means every dispute inside Scientology is settled by finding what he wrote. He withdrew from public view in 1980 and died in California in January 1986.