CORRECTION: Re: more prolegomena: writing timeline for V.?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

OK, I originally thought that 1961 was a mis-type, but then my confusion spiraled out of control when I checked the copyright page of my Harper-Perennial edition, it listed the copyright as 1961, 1963.  It also states: "A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1961, by J. B. Lippincott Company."  

Above that statement:  "Portions of chapter three appeared originally (considerably altered)as a short story entitled 'Under the Rose' in The Noble Savage 3, published by World Publishing Company."

The "this book" of the first statement is a little ambiguous.  A quick glance made me think that it was referring to THIS BOOK, V.  Also, Noble Savage 3 is more a publication than a book, isn't it?  All of which made me believe Mark hadn't mistyped after all.

Any way, I'm relieved the publication date is '63.  Makes the Eichmann trial more likely to have been an influence.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Jun 8, 2010 11:39 AM
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Cc: kelber at mindspring.com
>Subject: CORRECTION: Re: more prolegomena:  writing timeline for V.?
>
>MK wrote in previous email to this:
>"V. was evidently published by February 1 of 1961...."  
>
>WRONG.....( I was getting ahead of myself as I argued w myself and got this wrong)
>
> Laura K. noticed and asked whether this was year of paperback. No, year of hc pub.
>
>It is correct below.......
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> 
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>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Sent: Tue, June 8, 2010 8:15:44 AM
>Subject: more prolegomena: writing timeline for V.?
>
>If V. was in bookstores by Feb 1, 1963, this means it shipped from the publisher by late December 1962 (or earliest January). Maybe, per the novel's opening, on Christmas Eve? 
> 
>This also means the complete, finished manuscript must have been with Cork Smith, his editor at Lippincott, by March--May 1962. Even May would be pushing it. If we presume, as TRP did with GR, he retyped V. from whatever he had written it on---engineer's paper here too, I think---that would likely have meant the penultimate draft was finished perhaps by end of 1961 or slightly later.  (I believe Prof Krafft, at least, has seen the manuscript or the outtakes where some of Cork's suggested cuts reside.) This is close to the tightest best case and it is possible Cork Smith had it complete much earlier in 1961.
> 
>Pomono site: 
>Pynchon was graduated in June 1959. [After graduation he began work on his first novel. Disputed--MK] During this time, from February 1960 to September 1962, he worked as an engineering aide at Boeing, writing technical documents for the Bomarc Service Information Unit and the Field Support Unit for the Minuteman missile project, both nuclear missile projects. In 1963 Pynchon published V. and won a William Faulkner Foundation Award for best first novel of the year.
> 
>I would guess that TRP quit Boeing right after, or to do, final proofreading of V. in September 1962...within three months, standard time, of final 'going to press'. 
> 
>So, if TRP did not start writing V. until he graduated, then he finished it in 2 and 1/2 years,[6/1959--12/1961] while working full time for about two of those years. 
> 
>Unlikely to me. Too big, too much history. TRP takes too much care. You? 
> 
>So, if my timeline is more or less right, then it adds to Alice's and TRPs judgments that V. was continuing slow learner work. Some of it might have been being written while at Cornell later, overlapping maybe with some of the stories published then. As i said, it might have been started in the Navy. The Secret Integration was published later than the story Under the Rose, for example---which appears in V. changed a lot, of course. 
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