Right, Greg--but Donn is aware of whole reams of existing material that hasn't seen print. Anyone who feels like doing the math, add up 1,000 words a day, every day, from August 22, 1932, till now, or even figure how many weeks since then at a short story a week. Compare that to the number of words in Ray's existing published works. (I know, you can't, as we don't know the length of about 50 early rare stories, but you could make an estimate.) Then subtract the million or so words he burned before his wedding in 1947--it still adds up to a pile of unpublished words! Just suggesting some may concern Venus.

Dandelion--What is the story about him burning material right before his wedding? I have never heard anything about this. Thanks. Also, do you know anything about his children? I once heard he had four daughters, but that's all I've ever heard. Did any of them go into writing or a writing-related field? I've always wondered about his talent being passedd on.....

Legend has it that right before he got married (I believe) Ray B. took a load of his very early writings (something close to "a million words") and burned them all in a BBQ grill. Apparently he didn't like any of them and didn't want them to pop up later on down the line. Perhaps he saw it as a metaphorical "fresh start."

-Greg

One of his daughters, Betinna, worked as a writer for the soaps, 'Capitol'.

Oh great. Now I'm going to have to try watching it.

Greg Miller:

As I understand it, it definitely is not legend, the burning of the manuscripts....

We wouldn't call this censorship, but others may... saying we should've had a right to read it.... that is how stupid some people sound when the word censorship comes up.....