Brrrrr

Brrrrr.  It’s freezing here in Kansas City and has been for months on end.  The only good thing about it is that when it’s so cold and miserable outside, it makes it easier to stay inside and work on cranking out books.  After releasing a personal record-tying four editions in January, we’ve already put out one in February as well, with several more in the works.  Here’s the scoop on recent releases.

In January, we released John Trevena’s Furze the Cruel (1907), edited by Gerald Monsman, Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Eugene Aram (1832) in a scholarly edition by Ann-Barbara Graff, Eliza Lynn Linton’s social novel Realities (1851), edited by Deb Meem, and last but not least, Henry de Vere Stacpoole’s 1908 bestseller The Blue Lagoon, edited by Adrienne E. Gavin.  All four are up for order as we speak; all four are 10% off at Barnes and Noble’s site (http://www.bn.com) and some may be discounted at Amazon too.

So far February has seen release of Mrs. Smith’s The Caledonian Bandit, or, The Heir of Duncaethal (1811) with an introduction and notes by Carol Margaret Davison.  It’s our first rare Gothic to see the light of day since 2008′s Martyn of Fenrose; or, The Wizard and the Sword.  Martyn sold dismally, which was one reason we held off on releasing any more obscure Gothics for a while, but we hope people will pick up Caledonian Bandit, which is quite a fun read, actually, and features a very good intro by Prof. Davison focusing on Gothic Scotland.  Interestingly, Caledonian is by the same author as Barozzi, which I previously edited for the press.  So why is Barozzi credited on its cover to Catherine Smith while Caledonian is ascribed to “Mrs.” Smith?  The “Catherine Smith” attribution was taken from Devendra Varma (who has to be one of the worst scholars ever, incidentally), who does not cite any source for the author’s name being Catherine, and after extensive research I could not confirm it, so we stuck with Mrs. for this one.  The “Catherine” name appears to come from an earlier work by a “Miss Smith”, in which the authoress signed her preface “Caterina”.  It seems exceedingly unlikely that Miss and Mrs. Smith are the same person, and we were unwilling to maintain Varma’s error (and mine in relying on him) and therefore took the course just described.  If anyone out there has evidence of this author’s identity, please contact me, as I’d be curious to know.

But I digress.  We have a number of projects in the works at the moment.  Most imminent (and eminent) perhaps is an illustrated edition of one of our most popular books, Baron de la Motte Fouque’s The Magic Ring.  Like our 2006 softcover version, this edition will include an introduction by fantasy literature scholar Amy H. Sturgis; however, the new hardcover edition will feature a full-color cover and numerous internal illustrations by noted fantasy artist Jef Murray.  It’s going to be amazing, so if you enjoyed our earlier edition and want a hardcover edition for your library, or if you’ve never read the tale at all, you won’t want to miss it.  At present, I’m reproofreading the entire text, as, like many of our very earliest publications, a handful of typos crept in.

Also in February and March, expect to see Karen Morton’s impressive monograph on Eliza Parsons’ life and works, a scholarly edition of Eaton Stannard Barrett’s absolutely brilliant comic novel The Heroine, and James Wurtz’s fine edition of Sheridan Le Fanu’s first novel, The Cock and Anchor.  As to the latter, while its title isn’t the best, and while it’s historical fiction, which can sometimes be rather dull, don’t let it scare you off — the novel is right up there with any of Le Fanu’s other suspense novels and features some really dastardly villains and some very Gothic subplots.

On another note, 2010 will mark personal and professional chronological milestones for myself and Valancourt Books: in mid-March, the press will celebrate its 5th anniversary; in June, I’ll be lamenting my 30th.  In looking back over our last 5 years and thinking about where the press is headed in the future, I’ve decided there will be some changes on the horizon.  When we started the press, we focused on bringing out inexpensive editions of rare novels more or less on the Penguin model, with short introductions and limited notes, with no scholarly apparatus.  At some point, we began to diverge from this model, bringing out editions with tons of notes and appendices (which resulted in higher page counts and higher prices) and bringing out editions that really didn’t fit with the types of books we originally set out to publish.  While I’m very proud of all our editions and think our editors have done fantastic work on them, in the future, we will be transitioning back to the types of books we started with.  Additionally, at some point we began publishing 30-35 books per year; that, too, will change.  Our goal in upcoming years will be to put out 12-18 or so quality books per year.  Why?  Simply because I’ve spent the better part of my twenties in front of a computer proofreading books.  Scaling back our ambitious publication schedule will facilitate a better life/work balance. 

2010 is shaping up to be an exciting Valancourt year.  In addition to the releases described above, we’ll be putting out Bram Stoker’s The Lady of the Shroud, an incredible two-volume anthology of gay (Uranian) writing edited by Michael Matthew Kaylor, and the long awaited first volume of The Mysteries of London.  As always, thank you to everyone for your support over the last five years, and here’s to five more!