Another prolific genre writer I've read quite a bit of, is Robert Reed.

ISFDB lists 237 stories, but Reed is "only" 57 years old and going very strongly indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
...Well, I finally figured out where I got the information from - it's from a title cross-reference Jon Eller sent me privately in 2004. But I have no other information on it!...

And here's the answer: it appeared in the limited edition Hill House edition of THE CAT'S PAJAMAS (called THE CAT'S PAJAMAS + 5). This book actually appeared in 2005, so the "Eller Reference" needs to be updated from 04-21 to 05-01.

There's a copy of this volume on sale via Abebooks, which also has photos of the cover/sleeve:

http://www.abebooks.com/servle...69%26amp%3Bsgnd%3Don

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
I don't have any insider knowledge, but maybe BRADBURY STORIES was compiled around the same time as QUICKER THAN THE EYE, despite the difference in publication dates.

Or maybe HarperCollins didn't want to harm sales of DRIVING BLIND by having any overlap with BRADBURY STORIES.

And maybe the contents of BRADBURY STORIES were not chosen by Bradbury, but by an editor at HarperCollins.

Jon Eller advises me that THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY, originally put together at Simon & Schuster, was compiled by S&S editors in close consultation with Ray.

BRADBURY STORIES, on the other hand, was compiled largely by Ray working on his own. He essentially worked through his body of work, skipping the stories already in the first collection, building up the contents until he got to 100 stories. The reason for the absence of stories from the later short story collections is simply that there was no room. (No doubt if he had started with his most recent shorts and worked backwards, we would be wondering why there were so few of the early stories...)

My thanks to Jon for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer these questions. For those who don't know, Jon is currently:

running the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies

• finalising his sequel to BECOMING RAY BRADBURY
  
• finalising the second COLLECTED STORIES volume
  
• cataloguing the vast shipment of materials received from Ray's house, and
  
• shepherding the next NEW RAY BRADBURY REVIEW through to publication (although Bill Touponce is editing this issue)

Phil, thanks for the fascinating information you obtained for us (well, for me - I don't think anyone else was puzzled by the same thing). And thanks of course to Jon Eller, for making his expertise available.

So Ray compiled Bradbury stories himself? That's fascinating, and gives rise to some pleasurable speculation. I wonder if he simply goofed by leaving out "R Is for Rocket"? Perhaps there was some sort of cross-checking oversight. Which seems unlikely, since there is evidence of great meticulousness in the tracklist.

I seem to remember, when THE STORIES came out in 1980, that there was mention of hours of pleasurable arguments about favorites, somewhere in the book or jacket, and that tallies with what you say.

I find this sort of thing fascinating. For example, Bradbury didn't like "No Particular Night or Morning" and regretted putting it in THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (Life of Fiction, p. 363). And yet, it made the cut for THE STORIES.

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
...Bradbury didn't like "No Particular Night or Morning" and regretted putting it in THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (Life of Fiction, p. 363)...

That may have been a context thing... or maybe he mellowed about the story.

Incidentally, from my study of the extant papers from the production of RAY BRADBURY THEATRE, I get a strong impression that THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY was very much the source book for episode selection (with the exception of a few "modern" stories that Ray threw in, such as "Banshee").

And one thing I forgot to add:

SORB was a Simon and Schuster book. BRADBURY STORIES was a Morrow (HarperCollins) book. Therein lies the explanation for the complete lack of overlap: these books were competing in the marketplace! Although you and I think of SORB as being a 1980 book, it seems to have been kept in print for decades (and still is in print, but now from Everyman, if I recall correctly).

quote:

Originally posted by philnic: ...I get a strong impression that THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY was very much the source book for episode selection (with the exception of a few "modern" stories that Ray threw in, such as "Banshee").

My impression too, if I may chime in, several of the "modern" stories, including "Banshee", are from The Toynbee Convector. I'm looking forward to Prof. Eller's coverage of Bradbury during THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER years.

quote:

Originally posted by Linnl:
...several of the "modern" stories, including "Banshee", are from The Toynbee Convector...

Yes, and at the time (mid-80s), TOYNBEE was seen as Ray's return to short stories (after a long period without a collection of new material), so it would have been the obvious source for new adaptations.

A cynical reading of history might even see RBT as a marketing tool for the promotion of SORB and TTC - but I hasten to add that there is no evidence whatsoever that Ray or any of the production team were thinking on those terms.

Phil, I'm not too good on how publishing houses and imprints relate to one another, but all sources agree that SORB was a Alfred A. Knopf book. I scanned Wikipedia for a few seconds before I got bored, but as far as I can tell, Simon & Schuster and Knopf are not related. Or are they? No great research went into that comment.

I do understand that Knopf owns the Everyman's Library imprint, which explains the 2010 Everyman's edition.

While we're on the subject (actually, we're not, but that never stopped me), I noticed another minor anomaly about the repackaging of Ray's books.

As many of us know, Classic Stories 1 and 2 came out in 1990. Between them, they contained all the fiction in The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy, R Is for Rocket and S Is for Space.

Classic Stories 1 and 2 were reissued a few years later by Avon as The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories , and A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories . I liked the return to the classic titles, so I bought these, even though I already had all the stories.

But there is also a matching Avon repackage, called I Sing the Body Electric! and Other Stories . This seems to contain more or less all of ISTBE, plus some stories from Long After Midnight (I haven't ticked them off).

But doesn't this leave the reissue program unfinished? Where is the rest of Long After Midnight (which, continuing the pattern, would have been combined with another collection)?

So what I'm wondering is this: Were further repackaged volumes planned by Avon and if so, were they cancelled?

douglasSP, I would rather ask a different question: why do publishers feel it necessary to re-shuffle the stories like that? Ray's books are "unstable" enough - with stories slipping in and out of different editions of the same book - without further confusion caused by creating a new book with a similar title to an old one.

The short story collections (the original ones) were not just arbitrary gatherings of whatever stories were available; they were the author's considered arrangement of materials written across many years of work.

I don't mind "greatest hits" collections, but when they supplant the original collections I get rather irritated!

As for the Simon & Schuster business, I'm in error. You're right, Knopf was (and is, through Everyman) the publisher of SORB.

The reason for my confusion? Jon Eller told me the project was done through Nancy Nicholas and Robert Gottlieb at S&S. I gather that Gottlieb moved on to Knopf, presumably taking the project with him.

I'm in complete agreement with Phil. I prefer to read the stories as originally (and carefully) sequenced in their first editions. The trouble is, you can't get them!

I'd love to have a nice hardcover of each basic Bradbury title (US texts) . . . but even as a rabid RB fan, I don't have that! I wish someone would launch an orderly reissue series.

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
I'm in complete agreement with Phil. I prefer to read the stories as originally (and carefully) sequenced in their first editions. The trouble is, you can't get them!

I'd love to have a nice hardcover of each basic Bradbury title (US texts) . . . but even as a rabid RB fan, I don't have that! I wish someone would launch an orderly reissue series.

Ageed as well. I have maybe half of the basic early Bradbury titles, but they are mostly ex-library, exception being GA from The First Edition Library, then from TC on, all original.

A greatly missed celebratory/marketing event if an "orderly reissue series" never happens. Hope we all live long enough to witness and celebrate it.

By the way, you can find a wonderful discussion with Alfred Knopf about the publishing world (from a while back) on the DAY AT NIGHT site.

http://www.cuny.tv/show/dayatnight/PR1012191

Up to the end of the 1990s, all I had was what I could buy here in South Africa. The first Bradbury book I got when it was new at the bookstore was Long After Midnight . Besides those, I bought second hand titles whenever I saw them, and the occasional US edition was among these. Only from the internet age onward do I have all the William Morrow hardcovers.

The UK editions are often beautiful, and I sometimes buy one just because I like the new cover, and I'll always buy one if it's a new title.

Which brings me to a random thought: Do American fans realize that the Grafton edition of Where Robot Mice and Robot Men ... has BLUE pages? Rather nice. Did the original Knopf book have blue pages as well?