Various Editions

[Skip Wolfe]

Steven Maas writes:
>The recent discussion of editions of TRP's books got me looking at 
>mine. 

Got me thinking too; and I suddenly remembered four slim paperbacks of
(some of) Pynchon's short stories that I picked up in a bookstore maybe
15 years ago.  I've never seen any of them anywhere before or since.

Three of them were printed by Aloes Books, London.  The fourth, I'm not
quite sure.

"The Small Rain" has a sort of photo montage of an army 3/4-ton truck and
a soldier on the cover.  Inside it says "This edition is published in the
UK only by Aloes Books of London."  Pages are unnumbered.  Original price
1.20 pounds.

"The Secret Integration" has a montage of a man in an overcoat with a
polaroid camera for part of his head (from the eyes up) and some sort of
mechanical device on his arm, which is thrust into his coat, Napoleon
style.  There's another electronic device on his leg (looks like a patch
cord going into a jack in a synthesizer).  Lots of tiny letters and other
noise in the background.  More pictures on the frontispiece. 47 pages. 
Original price 1 pound.  

"Low-Lands" is in a smaller format and has a drawing of what is clearly
Pig Bodine wearing a hardhat with a stethoscope in his ears. He's holding
the business end, and there's a picture of what looks like George
Washington in it.  There's a circular object (maybe a gas mask 'cause
there are goggles too) over his nose -- snoutlike -- with the word "ONE"
from an american dollar bill in it.  There's part of a brass bed visible
behind him, part of a pile of junk at the dump, apparently.  The
production is more primitive than in the other two, though it's the same
publisher.  This one also says "1,500 copies only" and "Reprinted by
permission of Candida Donadio & Associates, Inc."  The pages aren't
numbered, and I don't see a price.

"Entropy" has a picture of what looks sort of like an Audubon print of a
bird on a branch superimposed over a photo of a skyscraper.  It doesn't
say Aloes Books anywhere, and there's no price.  There's a montage of
some more-or-less relevant photos in the inside back, and up front a
muted posthorn and the inscription "Trystero Troy Town MCMLVII."   In the
back it sez, "Dopico redivivus"  then "Imprimed by derangement with the
jittery hexecrators of Maxwell Demon Gent. and are to be sold at the sign
of the Post Horn in Echo Court."  13 pages.

Anybody else familiar with these -- especially you Brits?  Apparently
there was a similar edition of "Mortality & Mercy in Vienna" too, but I
didn't find it.

I'm pretty sure I got these before "Slow Learner" was published, and I
was darn happy to find something a couple steps up the evolutionary
ladder from the interlibrary loan xeroxes I'd had to read up until then.

	Skip