The Magician manuscript that Richard mentioned in his post was a typewritten copy of Ray's manuscript with handwritten corrections in the margins. Last I had heard was that there were 8 of these that were photocopied, and bound with a plain manilla cover and were done before the first printing of Magian in 1982. Sounds like a few more have surfaced over the last few years.
John will have to chime in here, but last I heard from him this was the rarest piece in his collection. There are a few other pieces that are unique (one of a kind), but not of Ray's first work so I would not deem them as valuable as the Magician ms. I could be totally out of date here, so wait for John's say so... I always do! Have a good one! -Devin Sent from my iPad On May 25, 2013, at 12:42 AM, Lani cat <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Devin, > Hey what is a "Manuscript".......is it a "pre" proof read edition that is > sent out to publisher? > (curious) > Lani > > Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 17:46:06 -0600 > Subject: Re: Magician - Grafton Edition. > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > > Hah! I've one of the original manuscripts that John has never gotten his > hands on...! I didn't realize that so many have popped up over the years. > That's what I get for taking such a long break from the list. > > -Devin > > On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Richard Williamson <[email protected]> > wrote: > Hi Simon, > > Can you turn off the images in your postings? This is a text-only list, > inserting images tends to annoy as there are some people who don't have the > bandwidth to handle them (either they pay by the k, or they live in places > where the Internet is this vague *waggles fingers dismissively* thing that > never caught on). It may be that the image you've attached is quite small, > it's just we have a zero-tolerance policy to prevent other people from > thinking it's ok to do... > > The person who can answer your question exactly (if the answer is available) > is John but he's just lost his dad so his responses may be delayed. > > From what I remember, the original (orange? cover) Grafton was published > in/around 1982, the '88 is either a reprint, the limp, a book club or > misidentified. The 1982 Grafton HC 1st, there were probably less then 2k > published (there were only about that many of the US true 1st '82 Magician). > Looking through Crydee, is this the one you have?: > > http://www.crydee.com/node/3805 > > which apparently doesn't show print runs, sorry. The original Grafton 1st UK > HC is so rare, I think John doesn't have a copy of it in his collection > (which is the largest in the world, by far). To compare, there were exactly > a dozen photocopies of the original Magician ms, complete with Ray's > hand-written markup after typing it out... John's possibly owned all of them > at one time or another. Probably at the same time. > > That's Ray's official website btw. The aforementioned John is the keeper of > it. > > rip > > > On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Simon Patterson <[email protected]> > wrote: > Hi There, > > I'm a rare bookseller from Leeds in the UK, I specialise in speculative > fiction. A few weeks ago I acquired a copy of Magician in hardback > published in 1988 by Grafton. I understand that the print run was quite low > - does anybody have any numbers? > > Thank you in advance - I've subscribed to the list, I like to get to know a > bit about the authors I sell. > > Simon > > > -- > > > > > > Simon J. Patterson > Bookseller, Leeds, UK. > Associate Member of the ABA and Member of the PBFA > > > [email protected] +44(0)7557 652 609 > > > Join us: > > > To be included on our newsletter or to sell books email: [email protected] > >
