[PW] Re: ? Ray Cummings Quote (Quotation Query #634)

[Dennis Lien]

Here's what I can report on the Cummings quotation query:

The original novelette "The Girl in the Golden Atom" was published in
the March 15, 1919 issue of ALL-STORY WEEKLY, as noted (and was Ray
Cummings' first published story; as a sidelight, he allegedly wrote
it for his own enjoyment and submitted it for publication only when
two friends talked him into doing so; one of those friends was the
actress Spring Byington).

Cummings published a longer sequel, "The People of the Golden Atom,"
as a serial in ALL-STORY in six parts, from 24 January through
28 February, 1920.

The two stories were combined, with some revision, into the book
version published under the title of the first story: THE GIRL IN
THE GOLDEN ATOM in England by Methuen in October, 1922 (month so
credited in the ENGLISH CATALOGUE) and by Harper in the US in
1923.  As far as I know, the UK and US editions are identical in
text, but I don't have a copy of the UK edition to verify this.

I have before me a copy of the 1974 Hyperion tp edition of the
1923 Harper edition, which is essentially a facsimile (pages
photographed from the original).  In this, the original
novelette takes up chapters I through VIII, comprising pages
1 through 70, and the sequel takes up chapters IX through XLI,
comprising pages 71 through 341.

ALL-STORY (and its stablemate ARGOSY) were major sources of
early science fiction previous to the appearance in 1926 of
AMAZING STORIES, which is generally accepted as the first
specialized sf magazine (at least in English).  In 1939, the
Munsey Company (publishers of ALL-STORY etc.) started a new
pulp, FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES, which was to be devoted
solely to reprinting sf and fantasy stories from old Munsey
magazines.  The novelette version of "The Girl in the Golden
Atom" appeared in FFM's first issue (Sept/Oct, 1939, on pages
75-99).  Munsey quickly started a second reprint pulp,
FANTASTIC NOVELS, and "The People of the Golden Atom" was
reprinted complete in the September 1940 issue of that.

I don't own or have access to the original ALL-STORY issues,
but I do own all of the FFM and FN issues, and the two
specified are at my desk as I type.  So far as I can
determine or have heard, all of the Munsey reprints in
the magazines were reprinted in complete original form,
not edited or abridged.   (In 1943, FFM had been sold to
a different publisher, Popular, and it thus lost access
to reprint rights from the Munsey magazines; it switched
its policy to reprinting fantasy novels that had never
before appeared in magazine form, and many of those
post-1942 novels were in fact abridged, but that's not
a factor in 1939/1940 period.)

In the Hyperion facsimile of the Harper novel version of
the stories, the "time is what keeps everything from
happening at once" exchange as Fred lists it below
does indeed appear (page 46, as part of chapter V,
"The World in the Ring").  The same exchange appears in
the online version of the story I cited earlier this
week at

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue22/atom6.html

The text of the online version, which is apparently
taken from the book, mostly agrees closely (usually word for
word) with the magazine version in FFM (and persumably
thus with the magazine version back in ALL-STORY), but
there are some changes.  For example, about halfway
down the chapter (V) the online version (and the book)
adds these lines which do not appear in the magazine:

****************

Politics was not Lylda's strong point, and I had to get it all from her, 
you know.

"For several days I was housed royally in the castle. Food was served me by 
an attendant who evidently was assigned solely to look after my needs. At 
first I was terribly confused by the constant, uniform light, but when I 
found certain hours set aside for sleep, just as we have them, when I began 
to eat regularly, I soon fell into the routine of this new life.

***************

Again, the last third or so of the text as presented on the page of the
URL cited above appears in the book version as well as online, but is
completely absent in the FFM version; this section starts with

***********
"Let's have another round of drinks," suggested the Banker — "this is dry 
work!"

"As a scientist you'd make a magnificent plumber, George!" retorted the Big 
Business Man. "You're about as helpful in this little gathering as an oyster!"

The Very Young Man rang for a waiter.

**************

and runs through the bottom of the page, many paragraphs later, with:

***************

"This is all tremendously interesting," sighed the Big Business Man, "but 
not very comprehensible."

********************

This long section is, aside from the drinks business, taken up entirely with
a discussion of the nature of time (whose flow differs between our world
and that of the Golden Atom), including that "keeps everything from happening
at once" banter.

In the FFM version, chapter V continues without a break to incorporate
the material which in the book and online versions comprise the "new"
chapters VI and VII (making for a very long Chapter V in the magazine).  The
8th and last chapter in the book and online versions, "I Must Go Back!"
which begins halfway down the page here:

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue23/atom8.html

appears under the same title but as Chapter VI (the last chapter) in
the FFM version.

In the book/online versions, there are again some additions not
present in FFM, such as:

************
"What a quaint idea!" said the Banker. "A modern 'Gulliver'."

The Chemist did not heed this interruption.
***********

and, near the end of the book/online "chapter VII," the
magazine's "You know!" becomes in book/online "By God!"
and the last lines of the chapter, which in the magazine
read:

Silence fell in <sic> the group as they stared at each
other, awed by the possibilities that opened up
before them.

become in book/online version:

"Why not?" said the Big Business Man, and silence
fell on the group as they stared at each other, awed
by the possibilities that opened up before them.

*************

The final chapter, "I Will Go Back," also adds this
brief line not in the magazine:

***************

That week will make little difference to the war. On the other hand, if I 
go to France first, it may take me a good many months to complete my task, 
and during that time Lylda will be using up her life several times faster 
than L No, gentlemen, I am going to her first."

**************

and, almost at the end:

*************
"I don't hardly dare give him up," said the Big Business Man.

"Me, too," agreed the Very Young Man sadly.
****************

*******************

Summary: it seems clear to me that Cummings either slightly revised his
original story, or restored from his original story some cuts that the
ALL-STORY editor might have made in the text.  Some of the variations
have the effect in the book/online version of seeming to try to give
the characters listening to his story a bit more personality (and they
badly need it...).  The change of "You know!" to "By God!" surely can
be explained by the (slightly) less prudish standards of book publishers
as compared to 1919 pulp magazine editors.  The big change, of course,
and the only lengthy or important one, is the whole "nature of time"
lecture/debate that appears in the book/online version but not in the
FFM magazine version.  If it did appear in Cummings' original manuscript,
it's just the sort of thing that a pulp editor of the period would
have been strongly tempted to cut out "to speed up the action" (such
as it is).  Alternately, if Cummings wanted to slightly pad out his
magazine story for book publication, it's just the sort of scene that
could have been written and dropped in -- and since the time variation
plays more of a part in the sequel, "People of the Golden Atom," he
may have felt the need to emphasize more in the earlier story.

(I've also closely skimmed "People of the Golden Atom" in the FANTASTIC
NOVELS reprint magazine version and didn't find the equivalent scene
and/or the specific quotation sought there either.)

The reprint of the novelette in GIANT ANTHOLOGY OF SCIENCE FICTION
(which I don't have to hand) presumably took its copy text from
pages 1-70 of the book version, rather than going back to the
ALL-STORY or FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES texts; and, as indicated
above, the online version is also derived from the book version text.

Without access to the original ALL STORY issue I can't say *for
certain* that the quotation doesn't appear there; perhaps it does,
and FFM did after all abridge the text.  But the weight of the
evidence, and the inferences from the other changes (especially
the "You know" vs. "By God!" change), seems very strongly in
the other direction: that the "keeps everything from happening
at once" does not appear in "The Girl in the Golden Atom" (or
in THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN ATOM) previous to its 1922/1923 book
edition.

As for "The Time Professor," unfortunately I don't have any
access to the text of that story, and as far as I know it has
never been reprinted, so I can't verify that the quote does
appear there.  All I can say is that it's part of Cummings'
"Tubby" series and the stories in that series are all intended
to be humorous, so the quote would certainly not be out of
place in the story.

The above of course goes on at insane length, but having done
the research I couldn't resist getting it all together in one
spot.  And besides, if I've saved some other poor researchers
from the task of reading too much Ray Cummings at a sitting,
it's all been worthwhile.  (Well, vaguely worthwhile, anyway.)

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu





At 04:56 PM 11/12/2006, you wrote:

>In The Yale Book of Quotations I have the following quote:
>
>Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
>         Ray Cummings, "The Time Professor" (1921)
>
>A purchaser of the YBQ has written to me to say that "The line is in 
>Cummings' most famous story, 'The Girl in the Golden Atom', which was 
>originally published in All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1919."  His source is 
>The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction, edited by Leo Margulies and Oscar 
>J. Friend, Merlin Press, Inc., New York, 1954. The quotation is from 
>Chapter V, "The World in the Ring", on p. 148 of his copy. Here is the 
>quotation, with some context:
>
>"To get a conception of this change you must analyze definitely what time 
>is. We measure and mark it by years, months, and so forth, down to minutes 
>and seconds, all based upon the movements of our earth around its sun. But 
>that is the measurement of time, not time itself. How would you describe time?"
>
>The Big Business Man smiled. "Time," he said, "is what keeps everything 
>from happening at once."
>
>"Very clever," laughed the Chemist.
>
>Is anyone able to verify whether the same passage appears in the original 
>magazine publication?  Denny?
>
>Fred Shapiro