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Author | Terry Pratchett and his pseudonyms Patrick Kearns and Uncle Jim |
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Language | English |
Genre | Fantasy |
Publisher | Originally published in serialized form in the Western Daily Press and Bucks Free Press newspapers between 1970 and 1984., Collected and republished as a book in October 2023 by Harper Collins. [1] |
Media type | Book, [1] Audio book [2] |
ISBN | 978-0063376199 [1] |
Website | https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-stroke-of-the-pen-terry-pratchett |
A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories is a 2023 posthumous book containing a collection of rediscovered short stories written by Terry Pratchett for the Western Daily Press and Bucks Free Press newspapers between 1970 and 1984, under his own name as well as under his pseudonyms Patrick Kearns and Uncle Jim.
The book features 20 short stories, a foreword by Neil Gaiman, an introduction by Pratchett's agent Colin Smythe, and an account by fans Pat and Jan Harkin of the research they did looking for the serialised story, "The Quest for the Keys" (1984), which led them to uncover many of the other stories.
A subset of the collection, including "The Quest for the Keys" and multiple stories taking place in the fictional city of Blackbury are especially notable for containing some of the earliest mentions of Discworld places and characters, which Pratchett would later develop into his best-known series spanning 41 books.
The book was universally well-received by critics, as an unexpected and welcome discovery of "new" writings by the deceased Pratchett. Critics noted that the author's characteristic witty and imaginative style was present in those early works, with the stories being praised for being well written, but without reaching the high calibre of his later works.
During his lifetime, Pratchett wrote 70 books (including the 41-book Discworld series) [3] and had sales of more than 100 million copies in 43 languages, over 44 years of writing. [4] [3] [5] He died in 2015 at the age of 66. [3]
Upon his death he left three completed novels: the final Discworld book, The Shepherd's Crown , [3] [6] and the concluding two parts of The Long Earth series, a science-fiction project he had been working on with Stephen Baxter. [6]
Pratchett was insistent that any incomplete works of his be destroyed after he died. He did not want people reviewing or publishing his notes and incomplete drafts. Following Pratchett's wishes, in 2017 his friend, business manager, and literary executor (and later biographer) Rob Wilkins drove an antique steamroller over a hard drive containing all unfinished Pratchett material (containing up to 10 incomplete novels). [6] [4] [5] [2]
Early in his career, Pratchett had been a journalist for multiple newspapers. [6] Also, between the 1960s and 1980s Pratchett had published short fictional serialized stories in newspapers under his own name as well as under two pseudonyms: Patrick Kearns, and Uncle Jim. [6] [7]
In 2010 Bucks Free Press released an online anthology of 250 short stories by Pratchett originally published between 1965 and 1970. [8] [6] [9] [10] Also, collections of his adult short fiction ( A Blink of the Screen ) and non-fiction essays ( A Slip of the Keyboard ) emerged shortly before his death. [6] A short story collection The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner was published in 2016. [3] In 2020 what was thought to be the final volume of his children's stories, The Time-Travelling Caveman was published. [6] It was believed that no additional works by Pratchett would posthumously emerge. [6] However, at that point only the pseudonym of Uncle Jim was attributed to Pratchett, with Patrick Kearns remaining unknown. [11]
Pratchett wrote many short stories for the Bristol-based newspaper Western Daily Press , some under his own name, and others under the pseudonym Patrick Kearns in the 1970s and 80s. Prior to 2022–2023, this pseudonym had not been attributed to him, Pratchett having kept its existence secret. [4] [3] [5] [2] [1]
Pratchett's publisher and later agent, Colin Smythe said: "For all the years I was Terry's publisher and then agent, he never ever gave me any help in finding his shorter writings – but as he wrote in his dedication to me in Dragons at Crumbling Castle, '[there were short stories Pratchett had] carefully hidden away and very deliberately forgot all about'." [4] [3] Further, Smythe noted his suspicion that Pratchett used pseudonyms as otherwise the at-the-time "honorable practice" [12] of only writing for one newspaper would have prevented him from publishing elsewhere, since Pratchett was employed at the Bath and West Evening Chronicle . [12]
One of Pratchett's serialised short stories was "The Quest for the Keys." Chris Lawrence first read it when he was 15 years old. It especially resonated with him, and he collected each part and framed them. “I treasured and kept them safe for more than 35 years; (...) having survived numerous house moves, little did I know of their importance.” [13] [4] [3] [5] In 2022 Lawrence realized that it was written by Pratchett. [upper-alpha 1] [3] [6] [7] [12] [11]
Upon this discovery, Lawrence contacted Smythe, [3] [12] who had not known of this story's existence. [12] [upper-alpha 2]
The printed clippings Lawrence collected were trimmed in such a way that they did not include bibliographical details such as the name of the publication nor the dates. [7] [12] [11] To find the original, unclipped, publications, Smythe turned to the couple Jan and Pat Harkin, retired doctors and fans of Pratchett. They became close to the writer in his later years, having met him at a fan convention. Pratchett would often call them up for anatomical advice when working on a book. [2] [5] The Harkins had honed their archival research skills in "fishing through medical records". [5] On occasion they had helped Smythe track down some of Pratchett's earlier pieces from the near-by National Newspaper Collection in the British Newspaper Archive in Boston Spa, Yorkshire. [11]
The Harkins set off to search for the original uncut version of "The Quest for the Keys". [5] [1] For months they delved into hundreds of back issues, [5] [4] in what i newspaper characterized as "an epic feat of literary sleuthing" by "a wife-and-husband team of amateur Pratchett-ologists", [5] resulting in what The Guardian called the "rediscover[y of] the lost treasures". [13]
"The Quest for the Keys" mentions the city of Morpork, otherwise first seen in Pratchett's first Discworld novel The Colour of Magic published in 1983. [11] The Harkins thought that it was unlikely that Pratchett would have reused that city's name after the publication of the novel, estimating instead that the short story might have been published some time between 1972 and 1984. [11] [5] [7] They decided to start their search from 1972 onwards, and go through four newspapers: Western Daily Press , Bucks Free Press , Midweek Free Press, Bath and West Evening Chronicle . They collected many short stories attributed to different authors for later assessment. Along the way they noticed that several written by a Patrick Kearns included the fictional city of Blackbury, which Pratchett had used in other works under his own name. This, plus another clue, helped confirm Pratchett's authorship: Smythe told them that "Kearns" was Pratchett's mother's maiden name. [5] [11]
The miscalculation of when the "The Quest for the Keys" might have been published broadened the Harkins' scope of their research, allowing them to unexpectedly discover the other stories. [7] [11] The collection of stories that emerged was bought by Pratchett’s long time publisher Transworld for a six-figure sum, [13] announced in February 2023, [13] [6] and published in October 2023. [15]
Rob Wilkins said that the "rediscovery of these stories is nothing short of a miracle and represents the last 'new' Pratchett material we are ever likely to find". [3] [13] "Whilst Terry was always very focused on the next novel and maintained that his unpublished works should never be released, he always held a grudging admiration for his younger self's work, and he would be tickled to see these stories celebrated in one wonderful volume. The stories from the beginning of his career, before he became the Terry Pratchett we know and love, are no less inspired and give real insight into the development of his creative genius," said Wilkins. [3] [13] "He would be bemused at the joy that I am getting from them: (...) anything for Terry that took him away from the work in progress was a distraction. Yes, he would be delighted they'd been found. He would have a twinkle in his eye as well that it took us this long to find them." [5]
Neil Gaiman called the discovery "a true treat". [1]
The book contains 20 collected short stories, originally published in serialized form in the Western Daily Press and Bucks Free Press newspapers between 1970 and 1984, under Pratchett's own name or his pseudonyms Patrick Kearns and Uncle Jim. [4] [3] [13] [16] [14] These were characterized by Publishers Weekly as having "unearthed a treasure trove of Pratchett's early writing". [16]
The book also includes a "touching" [16] foreword from Pratchett’s friend and Good Omens co-author Gaiman, [16] an introduction by Smythe, [12] and a concluding essay titled "The Quest for The Quest for the Keys" from the Harkins explaining their methodology and sharing their discoveries in recovering the stories from the archives. [16]
There are characters ranging from gnomes to cavemen, ghosts to wizards, and hauntings of council offices, time-travel tourism, and a visitor from another planet. [13] [4]
The collection includes stories such as "Wanted: A Fat Jolly Man With a Red Woolly Hat" in which Father Christmas gets a job at a bank, [2] [5] [16] and "The New Father Christmas" where Santa sacks his helpers in an effort to streamline his staff. [16] [2] Elsewhere, the Truman Show -esque "Mr Brown's Holiday Accident" tells of a man who discovers he is the main character in a continuously unfolding play, and "The Quest for the Keys", considered the best included story, features early mentions [upper-alpha 3] of Discworld's Morpork, a city from which a disreputable wizard sends a warrior named Kron on an adventure. [2]
Transworld managing director Larry Finlay [17] said that in the short stories Pratchett's fans would "spot nascent characters and settings that were to define his long career as one of the most exciting and inventive writers there has ever been". [13]
Gaiman noted in his foreword that the stories are briskly written: "He has a certain amount of space on the newspaper page… and he's going to start, build, and finish his story to the [exact] word-count." Kirkus Reviews further notes that "there's not much space for character development or worldbuilding; these short fictions are essentially jokes, setups, and punchlines delivered efficiently, but with glimmers of the Pratchett charm. Several stories set in the fictional town of Blackbury have a genial, tall-tale feel, and the 'proto-Discworld' in 'The Quest for the Keys'." [1]
A subset of the stories in the book take place in an early version of what would become Pratchett's Discworld – the first book of which was the 1983 The Colour of Magic ; "hint[ing] at the world Sir Terry would go on to create". [13] [4] [7] [1]
The Blackbury stories (1967–73) revolve around the Blackbury Institute of Applied Nonsense, a precursor of Unseen University. [18] [12] [upper-alpha 3] "The Quest for the Keys" (1984), contains an early mention of the Discworld series' Morpork. [16] [2] The story revolves around a proto-Rincewind facing a younger but still savvy version of Cohen the Barbarian set in a Morpork that has yet to be annexed to Ankh. [18] [2] [7] [upper-alpha 3]
The book includes 20 short stories: [7] [16] [14]
This collection of 20 short stories, republished in 2023, received positive reviews. The Times called them "unearthed gems", [7] The New Scientist an "absolute must-read", [19] and Publishers Weekly "excellent, often laugh-out-loud early works", [16] adding that "Pratchett devotees will be moved and gratified by this unexpected gift and even casual readers will be utterly charmed. There isn't a bad story in the bunch." [16]
Several reviews concurred in noting that these early works of Pratchett, while very much in his style, were good, but not up to the calibre of his later works. The New Statesman said that "his early work is wonderful, his later stuff is extraordinary," [6] and that "Pratchett's short stories were never his best work ('They cost me blood', as he was fond of saying), but they always had charm and imagination." [6] Kirkus Reviews said they "reflect an author in search of his craft". [1] Similarly, The Guardian noted that "While some of these stories whizz by a little too fast, they nonetheless brim with the absurdist wit and inventiveness with which Pratchett would make his name. The book is a fascinating glimpse of a writer finding his voice." [2] The Library Journal said that "the stories are very short and don't quite reflect the writer Pratchett became during the magnificent long run of the Discworld series, but the development of his authorial voice and the earliest seeds of what later became Discworld are there for readers who still miss his inimitable style." [18]
The Independent said "This delightful collection is inventive, entertaining, and a little quirky, often with a twisty end. Imaginative stories include characters like Og the caveman inventor and ghosts that have been evicted from their home. Several characters and settings make later appearances in the novels that established his career. The comedic fantasies that shape this book make for a fun read. The wit, wisdom, and intelligence are interspersed with a lively dose of naiveté, with entertaining results." The paper gave it a 9/10 score. [20]
The Times remarked that "Pratchett described his writing process as travelling through a mist-shrouded valley in which 'you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there'. He would head for the first tree, then the next, and, 'with any luck', make it across the valley. A Stroke of the Pen shows him at a stage when he was stopping at the first or second tree. Soon he would plunge into the forest." [7]
Some critics commented on which audiences the work may be most suitable for. Kirkus Reviews said that "like any collection of juvenilia, for committed fans only, but there's plenty here for them to enjoy." [1] . Library Journal concluded that "fans of Pratchett (...) will love questing through these stories for bits of Ankh-Morpork." [18] And i said that "the stories are enjoyable literary bonbons – written to a deadline by Pratchett, mainly for younger readers." [5]
Multiple critics highlighted "The Quest for the Keys" as the best and longest story included in the collection. Discworld fans are expected to be interested in it, for having one of the earliest mentions of Discworld's Morpork and also characters that were early versions of the ones that would later appear in Pratchett's novels. [2] [18] [16] [upper-alpha 3]
Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983–2015, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman.
The Last Continent is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the twenty-second book in his Discworld series. First published in 1998, it mocks the aspects of time travel such as the grandfather paradox and the Ray Bradbury short story "A Sound of Thunder". It also parodies Australian people and aspects of Australian culture, such as Crocodile Dundee, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Mad Max films, the Australian beer XXXX, Vegemite, thongs, cork hats, the Peach Melba, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, the bushranger Ned Kelly, the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, and the Australian songs "Waltzing Matilda", "Down Under", and "The Man From Snowy River".
The Colour of Magic is a 1983 fantasy comedy novel by Terry Pratchett, and is the first book of the Discworld series. The first printing of the British edition consisted of only 506 copies. Pratchett has described it as "an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns."
Equal Rites is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett. Published in 1987, it is the third novel in the Discworld series and the first in which the main character is not Rincewind. The title is a play on words related to the phrase "Equal Rights".
Discworld MUD is a popular MUD, a text-based online role-playing game, set in the Discworld as depicted in the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett.
Going Postal is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 33rd book in his Discworld series, released in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2004. Unlike most of Pratchett's Discworld novels, Going Postal is divided into chapters, a feature previously seen only in Pratchett's children's books and the Science of Discworld series. These chapters begin with a synopsis of philosophical themes, in a similar manner to some Victorian novels and, notably, to Jules Verne stories. The title refers to both the contents of the novel, as well as to the term 'going postal'.
"Theatre of Cruelty" is a short Discworld story by Terry Pratchett written in 1993. The name derives from a concept of Antonin Artaud.
Moist von Lipwig is a fictional character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. A "reformed con-man" who is one of the major characters of the series, von Lipwig is the protagonist of the novels Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam.
The Discworld Mapp is an atlas that contains a large, fold out map of the Discworld fictional world, drawn by Stephen Player to the directions of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs. It also contains a short booklet relating the adventures and explorers of the Disc and their discoveries.
The Unseen University Challenge is a book of trivia questions related to Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. It was written by David Langford and was published in 1996. Its name is a reference to the television quiz University Challenge. Unseen University is the Wizard's university in Ankh-Morpork. The book was the number 6 best-seller in paperback non-fiction on 15 June 1996.
Making Money is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, part of his Discworld series, first published in the UK on 20 September 2007. It is the second novel featuring Moist von Lipwig, and involves the Ankh-Morpork mint and specifically the introduction of paper money to the city. The novel won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2008, and was nominated for the Nebula Award the same year.
The Discworld Diaries are a series of themed diaries based on the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. Each one is based on an Ankh-Morpork institution, and has an opening section containing information about that institution written by Pratchett and Stephen Briggs.
Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic is a fantasy-comedy two-part British television adaptation of the bestselling novels The Colour of Magic (1983) and The Light Fantastic (1986) by Terry Pratchett. The fantasy film was produced for Sky1 by The Mob, a small British studio, starring David Jason, Sean Astin, Tim Curry, and Christopher Lee as the voice of Death. Vadim Jean both adapted the screenplay from Pratchett's original novels, and served as director.
Ankh-Morpork is a fictional city-state that is the setting for many Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.
Unseen Academicals is the 37th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The novel satirises football, and features Mustrum Ridcully setting up an Unseen University football team, with the Librarian in goal. It includes new details about "below stairs" life at the university. The book introduces several new characters, including Trevor Likely, a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda Sugarbean, a maker of "jolly good" pies; Juliet Stollop, a dim but beautiful young woman who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, a cultured, enigmatic, idealistic savant. According to the publisher, Transworld, the "on sale" date for the hardback was 1 October 2009 although the official publication date is 8 October 2009. Bookshop chain Borders included a small set of exclusive Discworld football cards with each book.
GM – The Independent Fantasy Roleplaying Magazine was first published in September 1988 by Croftward Publishing. The editorial team of Tim Metcalfe, Paul Boughton and Wayne worked together previously on Computer and Video Games magazine.
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The series began in 1983 with The Colour of Magic and continued until the final novel The Shepherd's Crown, which was published in 2015, following Pratchett's death. The books frequently parody or take inspiration from classic works, usually fantasy or science fiction, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, and often use them for satirical parallels with cultural, political and scientific issues.
Once More* With Footnotes is a book by Terry Pratchett, published by NESFA Press in 2004 when he was the Guest of Honor for Noreascon Four, the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention. It contains a mixture of short stories, articles, introductions to other books, and speeches, including his first published short story, "The Hades Business".
The Watch is a fantasy police procedural television programme inspired by the Ankh-Morpork City Watch from the Discworld series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett. The series, developed by BBC Studios for BBC America, premiered on 3 January 2021 and was released on BBC iPlayer on 1 July 2021.
Joy Wilkinson is a British screenwriter, playwright, author, and director.
All the stories collected in this book were originally published in the Western Daily Press either under Terry Pratchett's own name, or under his pseudonym Patrick Kearns, [4] [3] [5] [2] [1] or in the Bucks Free Press , under his pseudonym Uncle Jim. [14]
Between 1965 and 1970 the fantasy author wrote weekly stories for the Children's Circle section, written under the pseudonym Uncle Jim.
Now due to a collaboration between the Bucks Free Press and Friends of High Wycombe Libraries the 250 stories will all be put online for readers to enjoy.
To read these stories go to www.terrypratchett.weebly.com
Between the 8th of October 1965 and the 17th of July 1970, acclaimed fantasy author Terry Pratchett wrote stories for the Bucks Free Press newspaper which were published weekly, sometimes in episodic format. They were printed in the Children's Circle section, written under the pseudonym of Uncle Jim. His style of writing and humour are easily recognisable in places. In total, Terry wrote 247 episodes for Children's Circle – a total of 67 individual stories.