Help Needed Re: Robert M. Price's "Exham Priory"

[rkukan]

Does anyone here have access to Robert M. Price's "Blasphemies & Revelations", or a copy of "Crypt of Cthulhu 72"?

In my copy of "B&R", the end of "Exham Priory" has been shorn of what I suspect to be no more than a few words.

Specifically, on p. 121, the paragraph beginning "My ascent was slow. . ."
ends with the incomplete line "No, it was by such soul-upheaving bestiality that the first".

I'm wondering just how much is missing. The publisher is willing to send me a replacement copy, but that strikes me as an expensive nuisance when a small erratum slip will do! If I'm only missing a short passage, I would be grateful if someone were to post the missing text. Thanks!

 

[j d worthington]

You could always write or email Bob Price and ask; or, alternatively, take a look at this:

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/lion/157/ex1.htm

You (and others) may also be interested in poking around at this site, as well:

Crypt of Cthulhu Index Page

 

[Ningauble]

You could always write or email Bob Price and ask; or, alternatively, take a look at this:

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/lion/157/ex1.htm

Huh... I get a "this website might harm your computer" when I try to go there. However, when googling for the phrase quoted by rkukan I get the following preview of that site:

"bestiality that the first human beings were created in earth's dawn age."

Annoyingly enough, that error is in my copy too. But like rkukan, I won't bother now that I've found the correct wording.

 

[rkukan]

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions. The "earth's dawn age" line certainly sounds like a plausible conclusion to the story, and I will take it as such.

 

[Ningauble]

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions. The "earth's dawn age" line certainly sounds like a plausible conclusion to the story, and I will take it as such.

You're welcome.
I'm fairly certain that it indeed is the correct line, because I know that "Exham Priory" was published in Mythos Online which was housed at that link (I've had Mythos Online bookmarked for years, in fact). Googling the last few words on p. 121 will bring you to that exact page, and you can see the end of the sentence in the tiny preview offered by Google. I don't dare actually visiting the page using my own computer, but I may give it a try when I'm at work.

 

[Ningauble]

Speaking of misprints: I just discovered that the notes for Chapter VIII of The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, which should have appeared on p. 299, are missing.

 

[rkukan]

Speaking of misprints: I just discovered that the notes for Chapter VIII of The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, which should have appeared on p. 299, are missing.

That's terrible! Have you informed the publisher? I have a copy on order, and am now wondering if I should cancel, pending the issue of a corrected edition.

I've not bought many publications from Mythos Books, but they do seem to have trouble delivering a problem-free text. Right now I'm reading their reprint of Pugmire's Sesqua Valley, and it's littered with typos.

 

[Ningauble]

That's terrible! Have you informed the publisher?

I have informed Joshi and the publisher, and received a reply from the former. He wasn't happy. But he said that there are plans for a paperback edition, next year or so, so maybe...

I have a copy on order, and am now wondering if I should cancel, pending the issue of a corrected edition.

I can't advice you there. Even without those notes (and fortunately that's the chapter with the least notes) it's still a very interesting book.

I've not bought many publications from Mythos Books, but they do seem to have trouble delivering a problem-free text. Right now I'm reading their reprint of Pugmire's Sesqua Valley, and it's littered with typos.

I'd say that generally they are no worse than others, but the last few ones have had more bad luck than usual.

 

[rkukan]

I have informed Joshi and the publisher, and received a reply from the former. He wasn't happy. But he said that there are plans for a paperback edition, next year or so, so maybe....

I'm prepared to wait for a corrected pb edition. Let's hope new errors aren't introduced as a consequence of fixing the old--which is what happened with Blasphemies & Revelations, the earliest copies of which duplicated one story while omitting another.

I'd say that generally they are no worse than others, but the last few ones have had more bad luck than usual.

Well, this isn't the Golden Age of Copy Editing! But nothing in my experience has so far matched the Wildside Press edition of Dunsany's A Dreamer's Tales: At the climax of "Blagdaross", instead of "Saladin is in this desert with all his paynims", we get "Saladin is in this desert with all his pyjamas"!

 

[j d worthington]

Well, this isn't the Golden Age of Copy Editing!

As someone who reads a lot of older books (that is, referring to the period in which they were printed)... Brother, you've got that right! You'd think that with all the extra tools to help catch such things....

But nothing in my experience has so far matched the Wildside Press edition of Dunsany's A Dreamer's Tales: At the climax of "Blagdaross", instead of "Saladin is in this desert with all his paynims", we get "Saladin is in this desert with all his pyjamas"!

I don't have that edition of the Dunsany (I was lucky enough to land a copy of the Modern Library edition from the nineteen-teens, as well as the Owlswick Press edition), so I was not aware of that gaffe... which is quite a bizarre one, I must admit....

 

[rkukan]

. . . I don't have that edition of the Dunsany (I was lucky enough to land a copy of the Modern Library edition from the nineteen-teens, as well as the Owlswick Press edition), so I was not aware of that gaffe... which is quite a bizarre one, I must admit....

It's not too hard to guess what probably happened. They ran the text through some sort of "spell check"; the application didn't recognize the word "paynim", and suggested "pyjama" as a "correction". Why anyone would accept such a suggestion is another matter!

The whole book is full of ghastly errors, although the example cited is surely the most outlandish. The awful thing is that the Wildside edition is supposedly the only one in print authorized by the Dunsany estate--I mean, have they looked at it? Dunsany would have a fit.

I, too, owned one of the Modern Library copies at one time, but gave it away to a woman I was trying to impress. Moral: Do not allow romance to interfere with your bibliophilic judgement.

 

[Ningauble]

It's not too hard to guess what probably happened. They ran the text through some sort of "spell check"; the application didn't recognize the word "paynim", and suggested "pyjama" as a "correction". Why anyone would accept such a suggestion is another matter!

The whole book is full of ghastly errors, although the example cited is surely the most outlandish. The awful thing is that the Wildside edition is supposedly the only one in print authorized by the Dunsany estate--I mean, have they looked at it? Dunsany would have a fit.

I used to have that one too, and I laughed myself within an inch of my life when I saw that error.

Dunsany would definitely have been furious. The man had a temper when tampering with his work was concerned. At one time, a magazine editor made some slight cuts in one of his stories. That was the last Dunsany story he ever published, because Dunsany never allowed taht magazine to publish anything by him again.

 

[Lobolover]

I wonder about him having a "fit" about it . Was he that prudent about his work ?

 

[j d worthington]

Depends on what you mean, Lobo. Or, rather, what you take "having a fit" to mean. Dunsany could be quite sharp without losing one iota of his dignity, and certainly he felt very strongly about his work, and no, he didn't take tampering with it at all kindly....