Transcribe
Translate
Variant, v. 1, issue 3, September 1947
Page 18
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
Who can know a man better than himself? Who can plumb the depths of any soul but his own? We present here the famous Dr. Keller, the David H..Keller whom you know. This is a reprint of his speech before the PSFS. It will be recalled by all who heard it, as an expose of his innermost secrets, the story of his unprinted manuscripts. UNBORN BABIES by Dr. David H. Keller It is difficult to find in surveying literature any summary by a story teller of his unpublished writings with an analysis of why they have never been printed. There may be various reasons for this silence, and one of them no doubt, is the reluctance to acknowledge writing material that cannot be sold. Another is the hope that some day such stories will find a market. There are, in the main, three classes of writers and it is hard to tell which group is deserving of the most pity. One contains those writers who have acquired a vogue and can obtain printing of their works as fast as they write them. Sinclair, Cabell, Kipling are examples. With many of these there is a marked deterioration in their writing, and thus they lose in reputation what they gain in output. Cabell is an illustration of this rapid descent into the commonplace in his desire to produce a book a year. The second class contain those who have their works published after death. There seems to be a peculiar desire to rush into print everything a popular author has left unpublished after he dies. Even unfinished tales are completed by some friend. Merritt is an excellent example, and I believe that the general opinion is that his fame has not been increased by these posthumous publications. The third class is probably by far the largest. It comprises those who have had their little day, die and are rapidly forgotten. Their unpublished brain children may be kept for a generation or two by some descendent and then are lost or destroyed. The writers in this group are probably better off than those in the other two classes. For purposes of classification another group could be made of those writers who are willing to acknowledge that they cannot write anything worth while, that their unprinted work is not worth printing and therefore, while in sound mind, deliberately destroy all unprinted material, close their typewriters and write finis to their literary career. I do not,however, know of any story-teller who has ever done this, for hope springs eternal, and most of us have the idea that we have at least one good tale untold that perhaps some day we may find an appreciative publisher for our accumulation of unprinted manuscripts. In a talk given to the Eastern Science Fiction Association (which was printed in the Fantasy Commentator, Vol.II. No.2) I considered my writings which have been published since 1895, a period of 52 yrs. Since that talk it has seemed appropriate to carefully consider what I have written and never had printed. It is astonishing to me to find the large number of such stories and novels, which have slowly accumulated in the course of half a century. Thus in my library I have a complete collection of all my printed material and another collection of my unborn babies. The questions naturally arise as to why these brain children were ever created, and once conceived, were never born. The main reason is very simple. A man either writes for money, or he writes for pleasure. If he writes simply to make money, he (18)
Saving...
prev
next
Who can know a man better than himself? Who can plumb the depths of any soul but his own? We present here the famous Dr. Keller, the David H..Keller whom you know. This is a reprint of his speech before the PSFS. It will be recalled by all who heard it, as an expose of his innermost secrets, the story of his unprinted manuscripts. UNBORN BABIES by Dr. David H. Keller It is difficult to find in surveying literature any summary by a story teller of his unpublished writings with an analysis of why they have never been printed. There may be various reasons for this silence, and one of them no doubt, is the reluctance to acknowledge writing material that cannot be sold. Another is the hope that some day such stories will find a market. There are, in the main, three classes of writers and it is hard to tell which group is deserving of the most pity. One contains those writers who have acquired a vogue and can obtain printing of their works as fast as they write them. Sinclair, Cabell, Kipling are examples. With many of these there is a marked deterioration in their writing, and thus they lose in reputation what they gain in output. Cabell is an illustration of this rapid descent into the commonplace in his desire to produce a book a year. The second class contain those who have their works published after death. There seems to be a peculiar desire to rush into print everything a popular author has left unpublished after he dies. Even unfinished tales are completed by some friend. Merritt is an excellent example, and I believe that the general opinion is that his fame has not been increased by these posthumous publications. The third class is probably by far the largest. It comprises those who have had their little day, die and are rapidly forgotten. Their unpublished brain children may be kept for a generation or two by some descendent and then are lost or destroyed. The writers in this group are probably better off than those in the other two classes. For purposes of classification another group could be made of those writers who are willing to acknowledge that they cannot write anything worth while, that their unprinted work is not worth printing and therefore, while in sound mind, deliberately destroy all unprinted material, close their typewriters and write finis to their literary career. I do not,however, know of any story-teller who has ever done this, for hope springs eternal, and most of us have the idea that we have at least one good tale untold that perhaps some day we may find an appreciative publisher for our accumulation of unprinted manuscripts. In a talk given to the Eastern Science Fiction Association (which was printed in the Fantasy Commentator, Vol.II. No.2) I considered my writings which have been published since 1895, a period of 52 yrs. Since that talk it has seemed appropriate to carefully consider what I have written and never had printed. It is astonishing to me to find the large number of such stories and novels, which have slowly accumulated in the course of half a century. Thus in my library I have a complete collection of all my printed material and another collection of my unborn babies. The questions naturally arise as to why these brain children were ever created, and once conceived, were never born. The main reason is very simple. A man either writes for money, or he writes for pleasure. If he writes simply to make money, he (18)
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
