41 Above the Rest: A Groff Conklin Index (update)
Beth Friedman
>Well, I've pretty much finished the first draft of the introduction,
>as well as compiling the data. I'm waiting to hear back from one or
>two people, and then it'll be time to get the cover art done and print
>that sucker. The layout will almost certainly be 8.5 x 11", side
>stapled, app. 36 pages, unless I can make it fit in a 5.5 x 8.5"
>chapbook without making the type so small you need a microscope. I'll
>also probably make it available on whatever web-site I eventually wind
>up with, but that's in the future.
Oh, neat. I used to be a Conklin completist.
>In pursuit of this, I'd be delighted to hear from anybody who knows of
>foreign reprints of the Conklin anthologies, especially non-English
>language ones. I'd also love to hear from anyone who has fond
>memories of reading the Conklin anthologies, although I don't know if
>they'll actually be used in the text of the index.
I have exceedingly fond memories of reading Conklin anthologies, though I
don't really have anything cogent to say. There was a period from 7th to
9th grade where I had formed an unreasonable prejudice against reading SF
novels, but I wanted to read all the SF short stories I could find. (In
retrospect, I have no idea why I felt this way, but it made perfect sense at
the time.) I discovered the Conklin anthologies -- my first one was
_Invaders of Earth_ -- and that kept me happy for a long time. I got to go
to various libraries in the area (Morton Grove, Skokie, Evanston) to check
out their collection and see if they had anything I didn't already have.
One of the things I particularly enjoyed, and I hope I'm not inventing this
memory, was a list of lost stories in the introduction to one of the
anthologies, including a description of a skyscraper that collapses. Then
later, I read an anthology that had the story "Mr. Murphy of New York" (I
think), and realized that that was the lost story that had been described
earlier.
>Unless someone can convince me otherwise, Aniara Press will only do
>100 copies, for which I am NOT yet taking orders. As if. I'll
>announce publication and price on the "for sale" newsgroups.
I hope you'll announce it here as well. I don't read the "for sale"
newsgroups, but this I'd probably be interested in.
--
Beth Friedman
b...@wavefront.com
Bud Webster
>I hope you'll announce it here as well. I don't read the "for sale"
>newsgroups, but this I'd probably be interested in.
I have no personal objection to announcing it here, except that I seem
to recall that commercial messages are frowned upon; if there's a
consensus that I can, I'll be happy to.
"The Ballad of Kansas McGriff", a story in verse form your dad
would like, is available as a limited-edition chapbook from
SRM, Publisher at http://www.korval.com/srmcat1.htm
Nancy Lebovitz
Bud Webster <budwe...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Beth Friedman" <b...@wavefront.com> sez:
>
>>I hope you'll announce it here as well. I don't read the "for sale"
>>newsgroups, but this I'd probably be interested in.
>
>I have no personal objection to announcing it here, except that I seem
>to recall that commercial messages are frowned upon; if there's a
>consensus that I can, I'll be happy to.
>
relevent commercial announcements, and an amateur small-run bibliography
of an sf editor is definitely a fannish thing to do.
Will you be publicizing it to libraries, or only to fans?
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
The calligraphic button website is up!
Bud Webster
>Will you be publicizing it to libraries, or only to fans?
You know, I hadn't though about that. Yeah, I probably will offer it
to libraries, although I'm not at all sure how to go about doing it.
Does anybody know if there's an established process for doing this?
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
> One of the things I particularly enjoyed, and I hope I'm not inventing this
> memory, was a list of lost stories in the introduction to one of the
> anthologies, including a description of a skyscraper that collapses. Then
> later, I read an anthology that had the story "Mr. Murphy of New York" (I
> think), and realized that that was the lost story that had been described
> earlier.
I remember a 3-novella anthology called *Three for Tomorrow*, edited by
Robert Silverberg, where Blish, Zelazny, and Silverberg wrote stories on a
theme suggested by Arthur C. Clarke in the Foreword. The theme was the
damage an individual could do to a complex, high-tech society.
Anyway, Clarke mentions (and spoils) a collapsed-skyscraper story from an
old magazine, but he clearly doesn't remember the author or title. I
remember being excited after reading "Mr. Murphy of New York" by one Thomas
McMorrow, as Beth did, and realizing that it was the story Clarke describes.
(Something doesn't add up, though. The Contento Index
<http://www.best.com/~contento/> says the story first appeared in *The
Saturday Evening Post* in 1930. It doesn't mention other magazine
appearances. From what I know of Clarke's reading habits, it seems unlikely
(not impossible) that he would have been reading that magazine. Conklin
anthologized it in a 1950 book, though, so maybe that's where Clarke read
it, and the details had faded by 1969.)
--
Bill Higgins, Beam Jockey | If a comet falls on Jupiter
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory | and nobody hears it,
Bitnet: Sic transit gloria mundi | does it make a noise?
Internet: HIG...@FNAL.FNAL.GOV |
SPAN/Hepnet: 43009::HIGGINS | --Dr. Barry D. Gehm