Irish fan Walt Willis was a beloved writer and a prolific one. Rounding up all his work and publishing it in collections has taken years. Now David Langford has finished the job with the latest addition to TAFF’s library of free downloads. Perhaps.  

Langford says The Harp Remembered is “A perhaps final ebook volume of Walt Willis’s fanwriting, including everything from the monumental Willis compilation Warhoon #28 that’s not already available in TAFF ebooks, plus much further material – some of it never before collected.”

The 181,000-word book is available in multiple electronic formats from the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund’s website, where they also hope you’ll make a little donation to the fund. Find it here.

From Warhoon there are extracts from Walt’s first fanzine Slant (here with several extras), the long autobiographical sequence of fannish reminiscences “I Remember Me”, several standalone articles, and the “Epilogue” chronicling Walt’s increasing distraction from fandom by his work as a senior civil servant in Northern Ireland during a resurgence of the Troubles. But he was to return….

In addition, The Harp Remembered contains the legendary Irish Fandom Christmas Cards (each in fact a mini-fanzine) and a mass of previously uncollected articles and compilations of fanzine columns other than the famous “The Harp That Once or Twice” (separately collected in its own TAFF ebook): “The Outpost”, “Plinth”, “The Perforated Finger”, “The Prying Fan” (as revived for Pulp) and “The Warier Bard”. The main text ends with a tasty selection of shorter items and extracts, from one-liners to one-pagers. Also included as an Appendix are appreciations by Ken Bulmer and Vince Clarke, and a corrected and expanded version of the Willis bibliography from Warhoon #28.

Cover artwork by Atom (Arthur Thomson) for Cry of the Nameless #171, December 1963, edited by F.M. Busby, Elinor Busby and Wally Weber.

[Based on a press release.]