A Midsummer Restoration; or, twenty-three degrees from the ivory buckle of the Winter Solstice
Working on finalizing Little, Big on Summer Solstice Eve, I had occasion to double-check a textual reference in "Pictured Heavens", the final scene of 3.1, which took me back to the original typescript of the novel, the version first submitted to Bantam Books in 1979 or '80. A handwritten emendation elsewhere on the page I consulted caught my eye, and I quickly discovered what turned out to be two previously unknown passages totaling 221 words, further elaborations of the description of Ariel Hawksquill's orrery, beautifully written and full of meaty astrological and artisanal detail. For unknown reasons, these splendid words had Somehow been cut from the first edition and since lost to history. I quickly typed up the two passages and sent them to John Crowley, who responded with the greatest interest. He had no idea how the passages came to be cut, and suspected it was a pair of adjacent typesetting errors that no one ever caught. Then, on Solstice afternoon, I received from Magister Crowley a freshly rewritten version of the material, which only served to improve the already-wonderful originals. I am happy to say we will indeed be adding the passages to the text of "Pictured Heavens", deepening and enriching it thereby. This sort of thing has happened before, but never with passages so extensive -- and that it happened at more or less the last possible moment before that chapter was to be locked down once and for all makes it especially sweet, a small miracle, a bit of the flotsam of fortuitous inadvertency.