The big news is – Peter S. Beagle’s ouerve is finally available in digital form.
The Last Unicorn — the only fantasy classic that has never been commercially available in eBook format – has been released in two electronic editions. Along with it the company is releasing seven previously-published Peter S. Beagle titles and four new ones. This set is a heavily-promoted worldwide Amazon exclusive (non-Kindle ebook editions will be released next year) and all titles are DRM-free. Preorder pages are live now, with an official release date of November 1.
THE LAST UNICORN: CLASSIC EDITION. Cover by Rebekah Naomi Cox. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016SBMNO0
THE LAST UNICORN: DELUXE EDITION. Contains the text of Peter’s classic novel, its Hugo and Nebula award-winning sequel “Two Hearts,” and an extensive interview with Peter. Cover by Rebekah Naomi Cox. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016SBMNM2
FOUR YEARS, FIVE SEASONS (new story collection). Five fantasy stories set during Peter’s teenage years in the Bronx, featuring himself and his friends from ages 11 through 15. Cover by Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016P6K3O0
LILA THE WEREWOLF AND OTHER TALES (new story collection). 6 classic Beagle stories and 10 new ones collected here for the first time. Introduction by Catherynne M. Valente. Cover by Sarah Allegra and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016P6K3SG
SMÉAGOL, DÉAGOL, AND BEAGLE: ESSAYS FROM THE HEADWATERS OF MY VOICE (new nonfiction collection). Peter explores the roots of his own creative inspiration in 10 revealing essays about the artists, writers, musicians, teachers, and family members who have most profoundly shaped his own work and style. Includes a detailed behind-the-scenes look at Peter’s “Adventure with Crazy Ralphie” (i.e., his scripting of Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS). Cover by Sarah Allegra and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016PO4ODI
sarahallegra.com
THESE ARE THEY (new nonfiction collection). In the ’60s Peter wrote several major magazine pieces about his front-line experiences during the ’60s Civil Rights movement, but the commissioning magazines were afraid to print them, and it wasn’t until the mid-’90s that a radically shortened and watered-down version of just one of them was finally made available. This edition presents Peter’s unfiltered, unbowdlerized original drafts for the first time — and given race relations in the United States in 2015 they are more relevant than ever. A must-read. Cover design by Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016P6K0O8
I SEE BY MY OUTFIT: CROSS-COUNTRY BY SCOOTER, AN ADVENTURE (nonfiction travel memoir). Brilliant and evocative tale of Peter’s 1963 scooter journey from New York to California, in the company of his childhood friend, artist Phil Sigunick. For the first time ever Peter’s text is accompanied by 15 pieces of Phil’s beautiful full-color artwork. Cover layout and design by Connor Cochran, featuring a page from the actual AAA Triptik used by Peter and Phil on their trip. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016PY2NCM
A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE (Peter’s acclaimed debut novel). Cover by Ann Monn and Connor Cochran. The photo was taken in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, the place that inspired Peter S. Beagle to write this book when he was only 19 years old. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016QPVDGC
THE LINE BETWEEN (2006 story collection). 11 stories, including “Two Hearts” (the sequel to THE LAST UNICORN) and “Mr. Sigerson,” Peter’s take on Sherlock Holmes. Cover by Sarah Allegra and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016SBMNP4
sarahallegra.com
THE MAGICIAN OF KARAKOSK: TALES FROM THE INNKEEPER’S WORLD. 6 stories set in the same world as Peter’s award-winning novel THE INNKEEPER’S SONG. Previously published in 1997 under the title GIANT BONES. Cover design by Ann Monn and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016P5VMMS
MIRROR KINGDOMS: THE BEST OF PETER S. BEAGLE, selected by Jonathan Strahan. Ebook edition of the 2010 Subterranean Press collection. 18 stories. Cover by Sarah Allegra and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016SBMNLS
SLEIGHT OF HAND (2011 story collection). 13 stories, including “The Best Worst Monster” and “The Woman Who Married the Man in the Moon,” a Schmendrick tale set before THE LAST UNICORN. Cover by Sarah Allegra and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016RL10GI
WE NEVER TALK ABOUT MY BROTHER (2009 story collection). Nine stories, and one poem cycle inspired by the Unicorn Tapestries. Cover by Sarah Allegra and Connor Cochran. Direct sales link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016PY2NGI 
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Four Seasons, Five Stories started life as audio readings by Peter on Green Man Review. If you’re interested in hearing him read them, there a link from the front page to them. And yes he’s an amazingly teals red reader!
Well, this is great news.
Hi, Cat — thanks for giving Peter an excuse to write those five stories. Plus the two we never sent you because they didn’t work; maybe someday he will solve them…
But what is a “teals red reader”?
I’m not usually much on audio books, but I really liked Beagle’s reading of Tamsin.
Technically, The Last Unicorn actually was commercially available, briefly, as part of a Humble Book Bundle a couple years back. But this is the first time it’s been available on an unlimited basis.
Oh, excellent! Time to adjust my wishlist. 🙂
Actually, Chris, I would take slight exception to that. The Humble Bundle was a limited-time charity release, not a commercial release. It wasn’t for sale in any traditional sense of the word.
Oh, thank you! “These Are They” looks really interesting.
“Oeuvre,” pliz, not “oueve.”
I’ll be scarfing up a bunch of these, particularly anything with new stories in it.
But what I _really_ want is I’M AFRAID YOU’VE GOT DRAGONS and SUMMERLONG, because I’m greedy like that.
Oh, and if anyone hasn’t read I SEE BY MY OUTFIT, don’t let the fact that it’s not SFF deter you. It’s the first Beagle I ever read, and it’s wonderful. Brilliantly written, engaging and a delightful read.
Is there any chance, now that Peter’s works are available as ebooks, that the published works in the Pangborn literary estates will be published as ebooks also?
Kurt Busiek: Thanks for catching my carefully italicized typo….
Ah, I KNEW I had a copy of The Last Unicorn in an ebook version that I’d gotten legitimately. I’d forgotten it was from a Story Bundle.
Very happy to see these more readily available!
redheadedfemme: THESE ARE THEY is, indeed, pretty cool. Here’s some more detail about the contents.
There are three sections to the book: 1965, 1968, and 2009. Each section has a present-tense intro that puts you inside Peter’s head and life during those years.
The main portion of the 1965 section is “Fayette County, Tennessee,” an article Peter wrote about joining his college student brother in Fayette County to help the civil rights push there, concluding with an integration protest of local businesses in which Peter came within a half inch of getting killed. (And no, that isn’t an exaggeration.) Holiday commissioned the piece but never published for fear of losing southern subscribers. It appears here for the first time.
The main body of the 1968 section is about Peter’s experiences with Martin Luther King’s Poor Peoples’ Campaign, on the Southern Caravan bus ride to DC and in DC itself, sharing a shack in the Millennium City encampment on the Washington Mall. He wrote that material for the Saturday Evening Post. The Post‘s editors made Peter do multiple rewrites, trying to tone it down and make it less challenging for the magazine’s readership, but finally spiked it all in the end. The last, most-watered-down draft finally wound up being published in 1996 in Peter’s collection The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, from Tachyon Publications. I remember reading it there back around 2001 and being surprised at how it didn’t “feel” like Peter’s normal work. Of course, then I didn’t know that it was the smoking ruin left after massive editorial intervention. When I found the carbons of Peter’s original draft in his papers it was a revelation, and I’m thrilled to be able to get it out where people can see it at last.
(This is also why there’s a LILA THE WEREWOLF collection in the new title list, actually. We weren’t ever going to reprint the watered-down-not-really-Peter version of the Poor Peoples’ Campaign piece, and without that the Rhinoceros collection was gutted. So I took 6 stories from that book, put them together with 10 recent stories waiting to be collected, and there you go.)
The 2009 section is a song lyric/poem Peter wrote about Barack Obama’s inauguration, tying that event back into his 1968 memories.
I think it’s a great set — Peter at the absolute height of his nonfiction writing. And what he saw and experienced back then is incredibly relevant right now.
Kurt Busiek: There’s a reasonable chance that I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons will finally appear sometime next year, though under a collaborative byline listing both Peter and me. (This doesn’t reflect any change in the material itself, just a coming out of the closet. The book was a collaboration from the start, but at the time we got Peter the contract there were reasons not to say so which have since evaporated.) He and I have been working together as writer/editor and writer/editor-writer for a very long time, and in Dragons we’ve achieved something like what Neil and Terry managed with Good Omens — no one who reads the manuscript can figure out who came up with what. Gratifying, that.
Summerlong is a different matter. First, the title is going to have to change, since another book with that title came out from a major publisher earlier this year. Second, this one is Peter all the way and there are still problems with the manuscript that he hasn’t solved. When they are solved, it will be released. I just don’t know how long it will take him to get there.
Bruce: Re Pangborn, yes. And not just Edgar’s work, but also his sister Mary’s, including several manuscripts they collaborated on. The thing here is that when I hauled two van loads of personal papers out of Mary’s house in 2003 I discovered not just tons of new stuff, but also that Edgar had continued to tinker with his books after they were published — only none of those authorial changes have ever seen the light of day. It’s going to be a massive project, but the plan is to comb through all the drafts and all the author/publisher/agent correspondence and try to put together definitive final versions of the books that reflect Edgar’s developing wishes.
Also very cool: some people familiar with Edgar’s background know that his first love was music, and that from age 15 into his early 20s he studied music at Harvard and at the New England Conservatory of Music. But the impression he gave people after he turned to writing was that all he’d done was play. Not true. I found over 50 original classical compositions by Edgar tucked away in a cranny in one wall of the attic. I’ve no idea if they are any good or not, but I’m working on getting them converted into MIDI scores that can be turned into recordings. Then we’ll all know.
@Connor
Thank you for those behind-the-scenes tidbits! I went ahead and ordered both “The Last Unicorn” and “These Are They.” Looking forward to them.
Well, “ouerve” is closer, at least, but the word really is “oeuvre.”
Great news on DRAGONS, Connor! Thanks for the updates.
So glad to see this! I picked up the e-version of The Last Unicorn in the humble budle, but the deluxe is tempting me…
Oh, wow. This is fantastic.
Can anybody tell me if any of this material is Hugo-eligible?
Four Years, Five Seasons are reprints from the audio stories here, and from those, I’ve seen “The Stickball Witch” anthologized. How about the others? And is Sméagol, Déagol, and Beagle new material, or are the essays previously published?
I’ll be reading it all anyway, but I might prioritize the Hugo-eligible ones…
Standback: Let’s see…
One essay in Sméagol, Déagol, and Beagle was previously published as an Amazon Short. The rest are published here for the first time. So any of the other essays and the book itself would be eligible in the Best Related Work category.
Of the Four Years, Five Seasons set, three of the five stories are in print for the first time, having previously only had life as podcasts and as part of the audiobook release. The three are “Mr. McCaslin,” “Marty and the Messenger,” and “The Fifth Season.” I could see that last one as a Hugo contender, but I’m biased.
There are 10 previously uncollected stories in Lila the Werewolf and Other Tales, but none are being published for the first time, so they aren’t eligible. Just very good. Especially “The Way It Works Out and All” and “Underbridge.” (The latter story is one which would probably surprise most of Peter’s fans. He’s not known for horror, and it definitely qualifies.) I am also sneakily fond of “Trinity County, CA,” which is a real-world dragon story that never once uses the word.
I’m still dragging my feet on e books…