Anticipatory plagiarism is a concept I used to struggle with - coming up with a brilliant idea only to come to realize that someone else had thought of it and published it decades or even centuries earlier than you had the opportunity to get it down.
This also happens in literature when a writer unwittingly writes a similar story to something they had never come across. In general, this happens by some sort of collective osmosis (perhaps it’s a Jungian phenomenon) by which these thoughts and ideas are in the ether - part of the existing background. It’s in the groundwater.
This morning I read a short story in the Bradbury-edited collection that I’ve been making my way through. It’s called “Mr. Death and the Redheaded Woman”, by Helen Eustis. It is an unintentional prequel to Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse (by which I mean of course, Anthony unintentionally wrote a whole series of novels {of which I’ve read the first few but not all} as a follow up to Eustis’s very fine story).
I've been getting back into Wikipedia as of late, particularly as I've been reading Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow, edited and with an introduction by Ray Bradbury. As I started digging into the stories, I was struck first by the sense of time - of being tales from a different (but not entirely unfamiliar) era. Much like when I read The Thin Man last year, one of the most enjoyable parts of every story, is a real insight into how folks lived 'in the before'.
The stories have also been enjoyable in their own right, but because they are primarily speculative as opposed to pure fantasy, they each have been deeply and fundamentally rooted in the time they are written (or when they are portraying in the rare case it's not meant to be "present day"). Bradbury finished the introduction on 1 July 1951, which means the collection is made up of stories all from before that time (and likely mostly well before, given that they're mostly being re-produced and collected here in this book).
As I read the first couple stories, I wondered who the collection of writers were that Bradbury had collected. I've heard of many of them, but the first two at least were completely unfamiliar to me. Henry Kuttner's story, particularly, excited me as he had worked within the Cthulhu Mythos (and had corresponded with H.P. Lovecraft). Kuttner also worked closely in collaboration with his wife, C.L. Moore and the authorship of much of his work and her work were intermingled (so much so that the story in this collection could likely have been in good part her work).
I plodded forward, and for each story resolved to read the Wikipedia entry for each author in concert with the story. Which brought me to Christine Govan's story, where I found no corresponding wiki-entry (though she was mentioned in a few other articles, often as a family member to someone else). A writer in her own right, I created her article and have now noticed that Helen Eustis also has one missing.
Govan and Eustis were the second and third woman authors collected in this book, and the first two authors in the book without their own wiki-entries. It's a problem and I am working on solving in a small way. I created a stub for Govan, in the same way that I had Faustin E. Wirkus years ago. I don't have the time or inclination to go in depth and create a full article, but a sourced stub about someone who definitely deserves a wiki-page will grow on its own. It takes time, but eventually the world will help do the work (as long as it doesn't get deleted!).
I've been getting back into Wikipedia as of late, particularly as I've been reading Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow, edited and with an introduction by Ray Bradbury. As I started digging into the stories, I was struck first by the sense of time - of being tales from a different (but not entirely unfamiliar) era. Much like when I read The Thin Man last year, one of the most enjoyable parts of every story, is a real insight into how folks lived 'in the before'.
The stories have also been enjoyable in their own right, but because they are primarily speculative as opposed to pure fantasy, they each have been deeply and fundamentally rooted in the time they are written (or when they are portraying in the rare case it's not meant to be "present day"). Bradbury finished the introduction on 1 July 1951, which means the collection is made up of stories all from before that time (and likely mostly well before, given that they're mostly being re-produced and collected here in this book).
As I read the first couple stories, I wondered who the collection of writers were that Bradbury had collected. I've heard of many of them, but the first two at least were completely unfamiliar to me. Henry Kuttner's story, particularly, excited me as he had worked within the Cthulhu Mythos (and had corresponded with H.P. Lovecraft). Kuttner also worked closely in collaboration with his wife, C.L. Moore and the authorship of much of his work and her work were intermingled (so much so that the story in this collection could likely have been in good part her work).
I plodded forward, and for each story resolved to read the Wikipedia entry for each author in concert with the story. Which brought me to Christine Govan's story, where I found no corresponding wiki-entry (though she was mentioned in a few other articles, often as a family member to someone else). A writer in her own right, I created her article and have now noticed that Helen Eustis also has one missing.
Govan and Eustis were the second and third woman authors collected in this book, and the first two authors in the book without their own wiki-entries. It's a problem and I am working on solving in a small way. I created a stub for Govan, in the same way that I had Faustin E. Wirkus years ago. I don't have the time or inclination to go in depth and create a full article, but a sourced stub about someone who definitely deserves a wiki-page will grow on its own. It takes time, but eventually the world will help do the work (as long as it doesn't get deleted!).
