General Fiction – John Crowley

This is a timely entry, as today I received an update on the status of the Little, Big 25th Anniversary edition, a book I have been keenly anticipating for over five years.

It seems, according to the latest newsletter, that publication of this splendid edition is not far off, and I will soon have in my hands probably one of the most beautiful books ever published - as attested by Greer Gilman on her live journal.

Speaking of Little, Big I can attest that I have a dinky di, true blue, genuine first edition of the novel, first published in 1981 in a Bantam Trade Paperback edition. It’s rather the worse for wear – it has been in my possession for almost 30 years, and read many times, not to mention loaned out on several occasions – but it hasn’t fallen apart. As much as I am longing to reread it, I’ve sworn to myself that I will do so when the 25th Anniversary edition arrives.

Little, Big is of course John Crowley’s best known work, but equally worthy is his marvellous Aegypt Quartet which I acquired piecemeal over the twenty years it was written.

Firstly Aegypt, published in a Gollancz paperback in1988, and Love & Sleep, in a Bantam trade paperback in 1995.

A long wait resulted in my purchasing hard cover first editions of Daemonomania, published by Bantam in August 2000 and the final book, Endless Things published in 2007 by Small Beer Press.

In between the publication of Daemonomania and Endless Things I acquired first editions of The Translator (2002) and Lord Byron’s Novel – The Evening Land (2005) both published by William Morrow and both fine novels in their own right.

John Crowley’s latest novel is his wonderful re-creation of the lives of those who worked in a world war II aircraft factory, Four Freedoms, published in 2009 by William Morrow.

And finally to complete my John Crowley collection, Novelties & Souvenirs, Collected Short Fiction, published in 2004 by Harper Perennial

Next – the other Crowley and Robertson Davies

Science Fiction 8 - Chapman, Clarke, Compton, Cowper & Crowley

To finish off authors whose names begin with a "c" here is an odd assortment of the above mentioned authors.

First Stepan Chapman's Troika - truly one of the weirdest books I've ever read. It was sent to me by Jeff VanderMeer several years ago. It is one of those rare Ministry of Whimsy books.

Next, the sole copy of an Arthur C Clarke book I have in my possession - The Fountains of Paradise.

Richard Cowper is a British writer and I was very fond of his Road To Corlay trilogy, sort of post apocalypse science fiction/fantasy. The first two books have lovely Don Maitz covers.

This collection of short stories by Cowper also has a terrific cover by Don Maitz.

D G Compton's Synthajoy somehow found its way into my collection. The cover is slightly psychedelic - try scrolling up and down and the circles spin.

And lastly, to wind up the ''c's", John Crowley's early science fiction novels. John Crowley is one of my all time favourite writers and I first discovered his books with the SF novel Beasts in the mid 1970s. From then on I collected pretty well all of his works. I do indeed have a first edition copy of Little, Big on another bookshelf, and have prepaid for a copy of the 25th Anniversary edition, finally due this year, which is sure to be a very fine example of bibliophilic eye candy. For this entry however I will only display mass market paperbacks of The Deep, Beasts, Engine Summer and Great Work of Time.

Next - Phillip K Dick, Samuel Delaney etc.