Jeremiah T.'s page

Howdy! It's me again!

I'm really delighted to see this back in print. I have the 1988 Baen collection JOHN THE BALLADEER, but I'm looking forward to acquiring the Paizo edition just for the hitherto uncollected pieces.

I know that the original edition of WHO FEARS THE DEVIL? includes a series of linking vignettes---which sort of serve to turn the whole into a picaresque "fix-up" novel. My Baen edition, however, takes these out of order and lumps them all together somewhere toward the back of the collection. Will the Paizo edition restore these linking vignettes to their original order?

Also, any chance we might one day see a Paizo reprint of the classic Wellman collection WORSE THINGS WAITING (Carcosa, 1973)? I know . . . I could just buy Night Shade's collected works of Wellman---but, dang, that runs into some dough, and especially so now that volume one is out of print and selling high!

Many thanks!

Hello, Mr. Mona! First-time poster here---with a burning question to boot.

First of all, I want to thank you and the other folks at Paizo for producing nice new trade editions of many a worthy classic of the fantastic. And you deserve double-thanks for the care you put into producing sound, definitive texts. I am especially excited about reading Otis Adelbert Kline in all his *unmutilated* glory. And while I'm on texts, I may as well segue to my question:

What's the source text for your upcoming edition of THE SHIP OF ISHTAR? I'm not a scholar of such matters by any stretch of the imagination, but I do realize that there are a lot of variant texts out there when it comes to A. Merritt. This is partly because Merritt was an inveterate reviser, and partly because of meddling editors. In the case of THE SHIP OF ISHTAR, I suspect editors were responsible for the shape of the first book publication (Putnam, 1926), in which certain passages from the original ARGOSY--ALL STORY text were truncated. This abridgment, however slight, was apparently severe enough to create unnecessary confusion among readers about the behavior of John Kenton early in the story. (If I am not mistaken--and, as I am working from memory, I'm making no claims of infallibility---the Putnam edition purged significant passages which referred to Kenton being afflicted with shell-shock after his service in the Great War.) Unfortunately, this altered text is probably the most widely read one, as Avon later used the Putnam text for their mass market PB reprints of ISHTAR. The preferred text is apparently that of the Borden Memorial Edition (ca. 1949). Not only did the Memorial Edition feature some of illustrator Virgil Finlay's most gorgeous work; it also restored the full text of ISHTAR. Of course that leaves this question: did the Memorial Edition merely restore the ARGOSY text in its entirety? or did it feature emendations/additions by Merritt, perhaps derived by the editors from MS material? Merritt, after all, was always endeavoring to improve his work. Of course, I've never compared the texts, so I couldn't say---but it would be most interesting to look into.

Anyway, just wondering as I wander (the 'Net that is). Many thanks! Keep up the great work!