Quote:
Originally Posted by pynch
Why buy the Bierce, when we have his fictional works—though not his essays (yet)— here on MR, uploaded by your most humble colleague? |
In fact I
had downloaded your version, Pynch, and thanks for that.
Since Delphi editions tend not to be as carefully edited as yours (or, for that matter other editions by people who care), the only reason to buy them is to add works that haven't appeared in other editions. I know from looking at M.R. James sites that the Delphi edition has a few things which don't appear in
A Pleasing Terror. Not that
that James has been a huge influence or interest, mind -- only, I've become interested in tracing the influence of proto-genre writers, which is why I picked up the Machen as well: Writers who worked in now-recognizable popular forms before a blueprint was imposed.
Then again, I saw Don's notice while swallowing a hasty lunch just before returning to the ordeal of editing swill on a deadline, so I didn't read Delphi's never-before-published-in-an-e-book claims as uncritically as I might have ordinarily.
I can tell you that the first Delphi edition I actually tried after looking at the Yeats -- Gogol's complete works (excluding the copious number he burned) -- made me tear up for reasons that had nothing to do with the tragic satire in
Dead Souls: The levels of error in that volume are heart-liquefying.
Quote:
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What mystifies you about Yeats’ appearance on Delphi Classics? He died in 1939 and is PD almost everywhere (outside the U.S.).
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I don't want to answer that question publicly because I'd hate to see Delphi's edition get pulled (unless someone a tad more conscientious (and aesthetically attenuated) cared to create another).