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Originally Posted by Ningauble  *sigh* I suspected as much. I think this phenomenon is called "encrustation", when a misprint is introduced in an early edition and then carried over to later editions. Hence my scepticism toward the Gollancz Necronomicon -- and that Centipede Press edition. |
This makes me think of a story I once came across concerning the "Masterworks" series by Bradbury. As the story goes, he was going over the stories preparatory to this, in order to have an authoritative text, and in looking over several of the paperback printings of his books, was driven to say "I didn't write that!" -- meaning, there had been so many mistakes, editorial alterations, and such, that the feel and sometimes the thrust of the story was seriously changed. Whether this is a true story or not, I don't know; but it wouldn't terribly surprise me....
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Same thing with Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter -- all modern editions have a serious misprint (part of sentence missing, replaced by part of another sentence from a couple of lines up) in Chapter XXI (IIRC). I've traced it as far back as the Ballantine edition (1969).
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That one is dismaying... especially that it hasn't been corrected in any edition so far, considering there have been a few....
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Was it the Whelan covers as far back as that? If so, they definitely are very cool. And yes, old Ballantines have a wonderful smell.  |
No, the Whelan covers didn't come around until the 1980s, as I recall, when Ballantine reissued four of the Beagle/Ballantine books, along with the two that had been part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series (edited by Lin Carter); and then the
Best of volume (which dropped a fairly long passage from "The Colour out of Space", as I recall.....) Actually, I'm not sure who did the covers for the Beagle edition... but they vary. The ones I'm fondest of (as far as artwork is concerned) are the later volumes -- even those are not chiefly HPL; they include the 2-volume pb of
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as the two Derleth collections, and
The Lurker at the Threshold by Derleth -- the only true HPL in those later volumes is
Ward, and a collection of nine of his revisions from
The Horror in the Museum. The earlier volumes (which were by HPL), the artwork was rather forgettable. However, the artists are not given credit in the books or on the cover, nor does Joshi note who did them in his bibliography. If there is anyone out there who can provide the name for the artists of the Beagle books (matching artist by particular title) I'd appreciate it.
Later, most of these (except for
The Mask of Cthulhu,
The Trail of Cthulhu,
Lurker, and
Ward) were reissued by Ballantine with covers by John Holmes.
For a look at the covers I'm talking about, this link reproduces them, and asks the same question....
Cthulhu Mythos: Beagle Boxer Covers