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Post by andydecker on Nov 21, 2019 12:30:15 GMT
Even the WT texts were of course edited. Editors serve a purpose, you know. Among sensible people, the standard edition of an author's work is considered to be what was published in his lifetime. Not so in fandom. You are absolutly right in this. Proper editing is becoming a lost art. Recently I saw a new novel by Tor, one of last man standing in SF, and they managed to screw the content page up. In this case I meant that the WT texts already were not the original texts any longer. I seem to remember that Wright sometimes did change a lot, as all magazine editors at the time were prone to do.
On the other hand, sometimes the director's cut is redundant. I have a couple different editions of Stoker's Dracula, and I never compared the texts. I assume that there will be much tinkering over the decades.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 21, 2019 14:32:49 GMT
In this case I meant that the WT texts already were not the original texts any longer. But they are the original texts, because they are what Lovecraft agreed to put his name on for publication. On the subject of editors, specifically copy-editors, there are counterexamples. I am very fond of the writings of somebody named Rebecca Cantrell, who has been self-publishing for a number of years. Her self-published stuff, while it might not be great literature, is entirely free of typos and other kinds of mistakes, something rarely seen from large publishing houses these days.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 21, 2019 14:57:33 GMT
In this case I meant that the WT texts already were not the original texts any longer. But they are the original texts, because they are what Lovecraft agreed to put his name on for publication. On the subject of editors, specifically copy-editors, there are counterexamples. I am very fond of the writings of somebody named Rebecca Cantrell, who has been self-publishing for a number of years. Her self-published stuff, while it might not be great literature, is entirely free of typos and other kinds of mistakes, something rarely seen from large publishing houses these days. indEed!
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Post by andydecker on Nov 21, 2019 17:51:10 GMT
On the subject of editors, specifically copy-editors, there are counterexamples. I am very fond of the writings of somebody named Rebecca Cantrell, who has been self-publishing for a number of years. Her self-published stuff, while it might not be great literature, is entirely free of typos and other kinds of mistakes, something rarely seen from large publishing houses these days. Remarkable. It is IndEed a sad fact that even large publishing houses like Gollancz have so lowered their standards.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Nov 23, 2019 11:31:42 GMT
Even the WT texts were of course edited. Editors serve a purpose, you know. Among sensible people, the standard edition of an author's work is considered to be what was published in his lifetime. Not so in fandom. How lacking in sense those editors who restored Joyce and Lawrence and Fitzgerald and Faulkner must have been! Still, they were nothing but fans.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Nov 23, 2019 11:33:59 GMT
In this case I meant that the WT texts already were not the original texts any longer. But they are the original texts, because they are what Lovecraft agreed to put his name on for publication. Agreed? I hardly think so in quite a few important instances.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 23, 2019 14:18:49 GMT
But they are the original texts, because they are what Lovecraft agreed to put his name on for publication. Agreed? I hardly think so in quite a few important instances. Why so much anger?
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Post by ramseycampbell on Nov 24, 2019 10:26:13 GMT
Agreed? I hardly think so in quite a few important instances. Why so much anger? No anger, just polite comment based on observation.
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Post by helrunar on Nov 25, 2019 17:42:06 GMT
My personal conclusion from having read selected letters by Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith is that both would have been overjoyed to know that S. T. Joshi (and/or his assistants) performed the onerous labor to restore the texts of their works in accordance with what they wrote in their original manuscripts.
I just came across this quote from HPL, anent the publication of "The Horror of Red Hook" in one of CCT's Not at Night anthologies in the UK:
I duly received the Selwyn and Blount anthology which you forwarded. Not half bad! My first appearance between cloth covers, save for prefaces to two books of other people’s poetry which I’ve edited. I note that their illiterate proofreader copies the misprinted punctuation of the Latin quotation—the comma after tali which so lacerated my heart in Weird Tales.
—H. P. Lovecraft to Farnsworth Wright, 22 Dec 1927, SL2.212, LA8.16
This particular comment from Lovecraft does show how much he cared about even minor points of editorial neglect or incompetence. There are several similar examples to be found in the excellent collection of all HPL and Smith's surviving correspondence with one another published by Hippocampus Press a couple of years ago. I seem to recall that Wright made Smith himself make some excisions to one of his tales, or perhaps made him change the ending, due to concern over possible censorship issues (I think Wright found what Smith wrote too potentially "erotic," an odd concern given the often very explicit paintings Mrs. Brundage supplied for the covers).
I'm not familiar with the extent of Derleth's attempt to restore, or further edit, HPL's texts. As Mr. Campbell indicated, restoring the texts of important authors who suffered the ravages of an often unduly censorious blue pencil from mercenary philistines down through the ages has been a scholarly pursuit for many decades now.
cheers, H.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 14, 2020 16:48:00 GMT
Shocktober 14th - Herbert West - Reanimator, by H P Lovecraft. Always had a soft spot for this one. Yes, there's some racial gubbins in here, but it's mostly barking pulp madness. Originally a serial, and the chapters suffer slightly from reiterating the plot every time, as Herbie deliriously tries to reanimate the dead, kicking off with guinea pigs, moving up through cats and dogs, and then attempting the ultimate - the human. Obtaining corpses isn't easy when you're a medical student at Miskatonic U, but Herbert is possessed with a maniacal zeal to succeed, although his experiments prove he does need a very very very fresh corpse, which will prove his undoing later. Things go more and more awry, with the initial corpse resurrection being destroyed in a house fire, the second going on a cannibalistic rampage before being banged up in an asylum (and being important to the story at the end). There's even a mad, mad WWI sequence featuring a headless corpse...and there's a film version as well.
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Post by andydecker on Oct 14, 2020 18:43:19 GMT
...and there's a film version as well. And it is a classic. Still a lot of fun. Worth watching for Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs alone.
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