Virginia Edition of Robert Heinlein’s Works – Reviews: Introduction

The Virginia Edition is the definitive collection of the works of Robert A. Heinlein. Authorized by The Heinlein Prize Trust – the author and his wife’s estate, which includes most of the copyrights to his work – the set includes “authoritative” texts of Heinlein’s writings, along with several volumes of correspondence and introductory essays to each volume by William H. Patterson, Jr. (Heinlein’s official biographer). Purchase of the Virginia Edition comes with lifetime online access to digitized versions of Heinlein’s manuscripts. Last December, the Virginia Edition Publishing Company heavily discounted the set. I had had my eye on it for awhile, and the discount coupled with some well-timed financial fortuities enabled me buy it. I received my access to the Heinlein Archives almost immediately, which was very nice, and on the whole the shipping and receipt of the set was very quick. (I did have some frustrations with FedEx about delivery, which required me to drive to their warehouse to pick up the last box of the set, but that certainly was not the fault of the publishers.) Over the next … um, period of time … my plan is to work my way through the Virginia Edition, beginning to end. Although I have been a Heinlein fan for some time, there are still many of his works that I have not read. I will post reviews of each volume on my blog here, looking at both the story and the presentation of it in this canonical way.

History and Publication of the Virginia Edition

The Virginia Edition was first conceived in 2006. In the original conception, there were going to be 5,000 clothbound sets produced, with 20 of those held back as leather-bound “special edition” sets. Each set would cost $2,200 ($3,900 for the special edition). However, the job and price were both scaled back significantly. Only 2,000 sets, all of them leather-bound, have been produced and their standard price is $1,500. The job of producing the sets was originally awarded to Meisha Merlin Publishing. However, after producing the first six volumes, Meisha Merlin folded. At that point, The Heinlein Prize Trust decided to create the Virginia Edition Publishing Company, which now prints the entire set. The six-volume set produced by Meisha Merlin is available as a $300 special edition collector’s set. In addition to printing the Virginia Edition, the Virginia Edition Publishing Company has published individual volumes of Heinlein’s works as well as two books in its Science Deck series about technologies that would help bring humanity into space. They also have a fun series of 1950s-style movie posters featuring characters and themes from Heinlein’s works.

Virginia Edition Organization

One of the things I hope to understand by the time I work my way through the Virginia Edition is its organization. Because simply looking at it, I do not understand it how the publishers decided on the order of the volumes. I have not seen anyone else provide a list of the volumes in the order they appear in the set, so I am providing one here, with the publication year in parentheses after each one (where applicable):

1. I Will Fear No Evil (1970)
2. Time Enough For Love (1973)
3. Starship Troopers (1959)
4. For Us, the Living (2004 [written 1939])
5. The Door into Summer (1957)
6. Double Star (1956)
7. Beyond This Horizon (1948)
8. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
9. How to Be a Politician (1946)
10. Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
11. Space Cadet (1948)
12. Red Planet (1949)
13. Farmer in the Sky (1950)
14. Between Planets (1951)
15. The Rolling Stones (1952)
16. Starman Jones (1953)
17. The Star Beast (1954)
18. Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
19. Time for the Stars (1956)
20. Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
21. Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
22. The Future History of Robert Heinlein: Vol. I
23. The Future History of Robert Heinlein: Vol. II
24. Friday (1982)
25. The Number of the Beast (1980)
26. Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)
27. The Cat Who Walks through Walls (1985)
28. To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987)
29. Podkayne of Mars (1963)
30. Expanded Universe (1980)
31. Sixth Column (1949)
32. Creating a Genre
33. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
34. New Worlds to Conquer
35. Glory Road (1963)
36. The Puppet Masters (1951)
37. The Nonfiction of Robert Heinlein: Volume I
38. The Nonfiction of Robert Heinlein: Volume II
39. The Heinlein Letters: Volume I
40. The Heinlein Letters: Volume II
41. The Heinlein Letters: Volume III
42. Farnham’s Freehold (1964)
43. Tramp Royale (1954)
44. Screen Writings of Robert Heinlein: Volume I
45. Screen Writings of Robert Heinlein: Volume II
46. Requiem

It’s immediately clear that the collection is not ordered chronologically. Nonetheless, there are some obvious groupings going on here, such as the run of juveniles (volumes 10 – 21) or the lot of Future History novels that Heinlein published in his final years (volumes 25-28). However, some of the others make no sense to me. For example, why is the mid-career Farnham’s Freehold stuck between the three volumes of correspondence and the travelogue Tramp Royale? And what sadistry led to the decision of placing I Will Fear No Evil as the first volume of the set? It may be that questions like these about the overall organization of the set cannot be gleaned from a mere reading. However, I’m hoping that in time I will come to understand why the publishers ordered it in this way. In the meantime, I will assume that the ordering makes sense to some logic that I simply do not yet perceive.

Appearance and Contents of Virginia Edition Volumes

The books themselves are very nicely done. Each volume is bound in leather and features gold-foil printing on the front cover and spine. The front cover contains the title of the volume, a unique emblem pertinent to that volume, the words “Virginia Edition” and the volume number. The spine contains a Virginia Edition mark, the title, “Robert A. Heinlein” and the volume number. For some reason, the volume numbers on the spines of Stranger in a Strange Land (vol. 8) and Starman Jones (vol. 16) are slightly higher than that of all the other volumes in the set, which really tweaks my OCD. The first non-blank page of each volume contains a quote from Heinlein about his wife Virginia (the collection’s namesake):

She is literarily my “best friend and severest critic”—and the magazine versions of items I wrote before 1948 (yesterday was our silver wedding day) show the effect of her helpful criticism in their book versions published after that year—as well as faults in two books prepared for publication before that time: RSG and BTH. From there on, she was a go-no-go-gauge I respected.

On the same page is the individual set number information. My set is number 530. Within each volume is a single-page note about the series, a frontispiece featuring Heinlein and hi family, and an introduction to the volume by William H. Patterson, Jr., followed by the volume’s primary textual contents. The last page of each volume contains notes about the text, including which edition it was taken from and whether there were additional copyedits made.

Conclusion

So, that’s my review of the Virginia Edition qua set. I suppose I should go start reading, now.