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Originally Posted by ZodWallop
One second. That didn't quite help. Maybe my introduction of the ebook question at the end mixed things up some.
Elric was first published (in the US) by Lancer in the '60's. This was a two book set. The Daw books you mention came later.
The two Lancer books, collecting the original stories and novellas were:
Stealer of Souls, which collected: - "The Dreaming City"
- "While the Gods Laugh"
- "The Stealer of Souls"
- "Kings in Darkness"
- "The Flame Bringers" or "The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams"
and Stormbringer collected: - "Dead God's Homecoming"
- "Black Sword's Brothers"
- "Sad Giant's Shield"
- "Doomed Lord's Passing"
Later, in the seventies, DAW republished the work as six books. Moorcock reworked and expanded The Dreaming City into the first book, Elric of Melibone and the final book Stormbringer is also somewhat reworked (I've been studying it a bit). There's also lots of additional material in the middle books.
Honestly, I'm not worried about sequential order or reading every last word written. Both versions of the story seem to have some merit: The earlier Lancer collections are Moorcock's raw, original writing. The later DAW reissues are redone by a more mature writer.
I'm mainly hoping that someone out there that has read both versions could say which they prefer.
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The ebook titled Elric: The Stealer of Souls (Chronicles of the Last Emperor of Melniboné, Vol. 1) actually collects all the stories from the two Lancer books mentioned above. |
The original Lancer books actually were not the original versions, which were a series of novellas published in Science Fantasy magazine from 1961 to 1964. The Lancer version was edited down to fit those 10 novellas into two books (remember in the 60's and 70's, books tended to be much shorter), so a lot of material was removed, then some bridge material was added so it would make sense. The DAW versions restored much of the original text so that the original text filled 3 books (Weird of the White Wolf, Bane of the Black Sword and Stormbringer) plus three books were added (Elric of Melnibone, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate and The Vanishing Tower). Elric of Melnibone was a novel detailing the origins of Elric and the Black Sword. The other two were made up of I think 3 novella's each. I don't think that material had been published earlier, but it's hard to say.
The author's note in Stormbringer says
"A version of this novel was originally published in the United States by Lancer Books in 1967. This new edition publishes for the first time in any country the full text of the original novel serialized in the English Science Fantasy magazine published 1963-1964. All previous editions have appeared with a quarter of the original text cut from them. This version has also been revised by the author from the original magazine text."
Hopefully this is what you were looking for.