Saturday 10 March 2018

Captain Flandry And The Day Of Their Return

I refer to:

Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return (London, 1978);

Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010).

Let us abbreviate these titles as The Day... and Captain Flandry...

Captain Flandry... is an omnibus collection of:

"Outpost of Empire"
The Day Of Their Return;
"Tiger by the Tail";
"Honorable Enemies";
"The Game of Glory";
"A Message in Secret."

For present purposes, I distinguish between The Day... as a single volume and The Day Of Their Return as the second of six works collected in Captain Flandry... The Day... and The Day Of Their Return are the same novel but please bear with me.

The Day... ends, on p. 207:

"He had never before known how steep the upward path was.

"But I pray you by the lifting skies,
"And the young wind over the grass,
"That you take your eyes from off my eyes,
"And let my spirit pass."
"-Kipling.

"THE END."

The table of contents in Captain Flandry... tells us that The Day Of Their Return begins on p. 74 and that "Tiger by the Tail" begins on p. 240.

"Outpost of Empire" ends on p. 72;
p. 73 is blank;
p. 74 is the dedication of The Day Of Their Return;
p. 75 presents the title of the novel, a Biblical quotation and the beginning of the first chapter.

Thus, The Day Of Their Return does begin, with its dedication, on p. 74.

P. 238 ends:

"He had never before known how steep the upward path was."

P. 239 is blank;
p. 240 is the quotation from Kipling (see above);
p. 241 presents the title and the beginning of the text of "Tiger by the Tail."

Thus:

"Tiger by the Tail" begins on p. 241, not on p. 240;
Captain Flandry... wrongly presents the Kipling quotation not as a coda to The Day Of Their Return but as a prelude to "Tiger by the Tail."

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Oh, oh, Baen Books or Hank Davis made a mistake in where the quote from Kipling was placed. If CAPTAIN FLANRY is reprinted I hope the mistake will be corrected.

Should I assume Hank Davis selected the revised version of "Tiger By The Tail" for this collection?

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
He did.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Good! I'm glad!

And, so far, my combox remarks are still showing up under my proper and not disappearing! (Knocks wood)

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
I keep checking. Please tell me if anything goes wrong again.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I will! I keep checking to see if my comments stay in their proper places.

Sean