Can anyone tell me about the "previously unpublished author's preferred text" of The Halloween Tree that has a publication date of September 30, 2005? At 496 pages, it looks like it's the Bradbury completist's dream.

Gauntlet Press has a page of information.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Walloon,

Walloon,

I am in occasional correspondence with Jon Eller, who has been preparing the texts for this edition. I'm sure Jon won't mind if I quote something he wrote to me:

"the first two texts (1967 screenplay and 1971 novel draft) are in facsimile, but I asked to have Ray's final March 1972 submitted novel typescript and the 1992 teleplay re-set.

For the final novel typescript, I have introduced all of Ray's galley revisions and the necessary corrections that he and his editors made to errors of content, but I have retained a few hundred line cuts that his editors removed from the original. Ray went along with these changes, but they were motivated by the Knopf view that HT's audience was to be children only.

You'll see the restored text, corrected and with Ray's final revisions of 1972 but without much of the heavy Knopf styling and line cuts."

That pretty much sums it up. I'm very keen to see the book, because it should reveal the complex relationship between Ray's film work and his literature. This is, I believe, a much under-studied aspect of his work - there are similar complex interactions between many of his other works which also had some origin in film work - Something Wicked This Way Comes, Green Shadows White Whale being two examples.

The only downside is likely to be Gauntlet's typical high cover prices!

Thanks, philnic.

Look at my post.Will you help me?

I am looking at your post above. Help you what?