fix-ups

This Wikipedia entry trots out an interesting publishing concept:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up

I know that a number of Cabell’s books started out in short story form — Jurgen being a good example, expanded from “Some Ladies and Jurgen.” But do any of his novels really amount to “fix-ups”? Are they made mostly of strung together and “fixed” previously published stories?

I know several of you have a handle on this better than do I.

Note that in a sense the whole Biography of the Life of Manuel is sort of a fix-up — a jury-rigged assemblage, some parts of which barely fit.

The article mentions Raymond Chandler novels, and I know that Dashiell Hammett did much the same for several of his.

With the latter-day 20th-century practise of writer workshops, the term fix-up could also apply to various stories or excerpts worked on in these venues, and later incorporated into novels.

It would appear from the Wikipedia definition that intention is not relevant. That is, the author may or may not intend for the shorter piece to fit into a novel eventually. In some cases, clearly that happened. In others, just as clearly the fix-up came later.

I'm not sure which applies to Cabell. Clearly he published many short stories which were later incorporated into novels, and many which were not. Did he have a clear idea from the beginning which path each story would take?

A good handful, actually. And I'm not counting short story collections that have some glue added between the stories or structural prologues and epilogues, such as Line of Love, Gallantry, Chivalry, Certain Hour, or even The Silver Stallion.

The Cords of Vanity (1909) was built upon six magazine stories that were published 1902-1904. Some were quite rewritten, characters changing names, etc.
See here (scroll down) http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/bibliography/manuel/cords.html The live links will take you to the magazine form of each story.

Domnei was built around two stories. One was The Soul of Mervisaunt which did take place in Poictesme, but the other, The Ultimate Master, was originally about a highway robber in Restoration England.
http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/contribution_periodicals/harpers/pdf/har...
http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/contribution_periodicals/harpers/pdf/har...

The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck was built on five magazine stories published 1903-1909. Rewritten, changed names in places, etc.
See here (scroll down) http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/bibliography/manuel/rivet.html The live links will take you to the magazine form of each story.

Jurgen: In keeping with his philosophy of literary economy, Cabell incorporated two previously published short stories into Jurgen. These were "An Amateur Ghost", originally published in The Argosy, February, 1902 Brewer No. 61, and "Some Ladies and Jurgen", which first appeared in The Smart Set for July, 1918 Brewer No. 245. In the novel, chapter XVI, "Divers Imbroglios of King Smoit", and chapter XVII, "About a Cock that crowed too soon", were based on the earlier story. Material from Some Ladies was spread among the first three and final two chapters, or something like that.

Figures of Earth got its start as six magazine stories published individually in 1919 and 1920:
- The Feathers of Olrun 1919
- The Designs of Miramon 1920
- The Hour of Freydis 1920
- The Head of Misery 1920
- The Image of Sesphra 1920
- The Hair of Melicent 1920
These were rewritten and linked together. The original forms are rather different, having a more naive 'fairy-tale' air about them.

And as mentioned above, The Silver Stallion, although usually counted as a novel, is really a series of linked stories, seven of which were originally published in the mags.

>3 Crypto-Willobie:

Any insight into whether JBC intended / hoped to build novels from these stories from the outset, or was this a decision wholly separate from the stories (his "economical genius" as it were)?

My guess is that with Figures and Stallion he probably always intended to make them into novels. But most of the earlier stories were just written as stories. Where his medieval and other pre-1800 stories were of differing settings and eras and so were amenable to being gathered into miscellanies, the modern stories were all set in c1880-1910 in a Virginia-like place (whether called Lichfield or not) and concerned a few character types that could be grouped together. At least one of the stories in Cords was originally about John Charteris instead of Robert Etheridge Townsend; and at least one of the stories in Rivet was about a professor (or doctor?) instead of Rudolph Musgrave. Some of the early protagonists were unnamed. It's been a little while since I looked into the specifics.

>1 wirkman:
"Note that in a sense the whole Biography of the Life of Manuel is sort of a fix-up — a jury-rigged assemblage, some parts of which barely fit."

In a number of ways Balzac's 'project' is not dissimilar to Cabell's...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Com%C3%A9die_humaine

Interesting, I wasn't familiar with Balzac's project.