The Last Unicorn : The Lost Version.
Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2006. Signed limited edition. Publisher's blue cloth, spine title stamped in blue, grey decorative endpapers, in Michael Wm. Kaluta dust jacket ($35). Fine, in fine dust jacket with slight press to spine head, in mylar cover. Item #238541
BEAGLE'S UNICORN BEGINNINGS
For many of us, The Last Unicorn begins with standing all alone in a lilac wood. However, Beagle's widely beloved story was born in the Berkshires, not King Haggard's kingdom, accompanied by Beagle's childhood friend, Phil. Attempting to write something that was not a fantasy novel and keep up with Phil's prolific landscape paintings, Beagle spent the summer muddling through stories. Eventually, he managed to put together about eighty pages of a tale about a unicorn before tossing the it, unworthy, into a filing cabinet and turning to non-fiction. This lost version is the original 1962 fragment that Beagle would eventually entirely rewrite into the fantasy novel that joined Lewis and Tolkien in marking the fantasies of our childhoods.
This copy was limited to 1000 numbered copies, signed by the author, of which this is copy A. It is estimated that ten lettered copies were reserved for Beagle to distribute to friends and family. From the personal collection of Beagle's former publisher, Connor Cochran.
Price: $750.00