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This is a really interesting, peculiar book. It's a collection of essays by authors who were big (some bigger than others) in the late Victorian period. They're looking back on their first book, usually interpreted as their first publication. Some of the stories are absolutely wild, while others are interesting for being typical of the time.One of the big takeaways for me was that 19th century publishing in London was a lot like Hollywood today. You had wannabes, scammers, hangers-on, all kinds of people who were attracted not by any attachment to writing as a discipline, but to the promise of money. The tenor of these stories is often wild and wooly. In Zangwill's essay, he talks about starting up a writing venture purely to make money, at a time when he was a student-teacher at a university. He was actually making a killing off of writing exploitative stories of the Jewish community he came from when the big-wigs of the university caught him out and threatened to expel him unless he stopped publishing.Another author almost pays a publisher 100 pounds for the honour of being published, only to realize at the last second that she was being played. And the scammer after her money was a genuine, bona-fide publisher! It was just that in between publishing novels he genuinely expected to succeed, he charged would-be authors to print their bad novels.The premises of a lot of these novels are pretty wild, too. This was the heyday of the sensation novel, and we get to hear some pretty sensational premises. I especially liked the plot to "Dead Man's Rock," a Stevenson rip-off about bloodthirsty pirates.I should add that since this was also the heyday of British imperialism, we get some significant doses of that, too. H. Rider Haggard in Africa, Rudyard Kipling in India, and Morley Roberts in North America (including BC). The blithe, unconcerned way that colonialism is introduced by these writers can be pretty hard to take. I found Roberts' thoughts on the good it does a man to go to the frontier to be especially painful. In the long run, though, I think it provided me a good window into the mentality of colonialism, so I don't regret reading it.All things considered, this is a great piece of social history which is also engaging on the level of gossipy chit-chat. (Sunrise)

Two short novels of "Time Crime" and "Oomphel in the Sky" by Henry Beam PiperAbout Henry Beam Piper: Henry Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 - c. November 6, 1964) was an American science fiction writer. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper. Another source gives his name as "Horace Beam Piper" and a different date of death. His gravestone says "Henry Beam Piper". Piper himself may have been the source of part of the confusion; he told people the H stood for Horace, encouraging the assumption that he used the initial because he disliked his name. On a copy of Little Fuzzy given to Charles O. Piper, Beam's cousin and executor, he wrote "To Charles from Henry." Piper's stories fall into two groups: stark space opera, such as Space Viking, or stories of cultural conflict or misunderstanding, such as Little Fuzzy or the Paratime stories.A running theme in his work is that history repeats itself; past events will have direct and clear analogues in the future. The novel Uller Uprising is the clearest example of this, being based on the Sepoy Mutiny. A similar example is the very title of Space Viking, although the novel is not a direct reinterpretation of a specific historical precedent. A later theme in the book involves the takeover of a planet in a manner reminiscent of the rise of Adolf Hitler.Piper's characterization was rooted in the notion of the self-reliant man, able to take care of himself and both willing and able to tackle any situation that might arise. This is exemplified in a bit of dialogue in his short story "Oomphel in the Sky" (1960): He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him.As a result, his stories tend towards the heroic, and the conflict is usually driven externally.Piper was interested in general semantics. It is explicitly mentioned in Murder in the Gunroom, and its principles, such as awareness of the limitations of knowledge, are apparent in his later work. (wikipedia.org)

Henry Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 - c. November 6, 1964) was an American science fiction writer. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper. Another source gives his name as "Horace Beam Piper" and a different date of death. His gravestone says "Henry Beam Piper". Piper himself may have been the source of part of the confusion; he told people the H stood for Horace, encouraging the assumption that he used the initial because he disliked his name. On a copy of Little Fuzzy given to Charles O. Piper, Beam's cousin and executor, he wrote "To Charles from Henry." Piper's stories fall into two groups: stark space opera, such as Space Viking, or stories of cultural conflict or misunderstanding, such as Little Fuzzy or the Paratime stories.A running theme in his work is that history repeats itself; past events will have direct and clear analogues in the future. The novel Uller Uprising is the clearest example of this, being based on the Sepoy Mutiny. A similar example is the very title of Space Viking, although the novel is not a direct reinterpretation of a specific historical precedent. A later theme in the book involves the takeover of a planet in a manner reminiscent of the rise of Adolf Hitler.Piper's characterization was rooted in the notion of the self-reliant man, able to take care of himself and both willing and able to tackle any situation that might arise. This is exemplified in a bit of dialogue in his short story "Oomphel in the Sky" (1960): He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him.As a result, his stories tend towards the heroic, and the conflict is usually driven externally.Piper was interested in general semantics. It is explicitly mentioned in Murder in the Gunroom, and its principles, such as awareness of the limitations of knowledge, are apparent in his later work. (wikipedia.org)