| The Official | Diana Wynne Jones | Website |
| Charmed Lives fanzine, issue 2, nearly midsummer 1998 |
Charmed Lives 4 Charmed Lives 2 Charmed Lives 1 Complete Fanzine Index |
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edited and unless otherwise indicated, written by Meredith
Since the first issue of Charmed Lives, I am delighted that so many other Diana Wynne Jones fans have slithered into the open. No longer do I feel like an isolated, moronic idiot who never grew up, reading books aimed at decades below my chronological age. It is really encouraging to find so many other so-called grown-ups who like children’s books! This fanzine is to celebrate the books of Diana Wynne Jones and other great fantasy that is supposedly for kids but if for everyone — like me — who is happily childish at heart. This is probably the right moment to talk about fanzine etiquette, of which I am woefully but blissfully ignorant. But, I have it on good authority (long-standing SF fan and fan of DWJ, what’s more, Caroline Mullen) that letters should be published along with the writer’s name and address. In my various jobs, including producing newsletters for membership organisations, the thought of publishing someone’s address without their express consent is a crime so heinous that you would face the firing squad without benefit of a last read. So, I am going to compromise. I will publish extracts from letters with the sender’s name and very vague address (Britain, the earth, the solar system, the Milky Way, the universe ...) People who have written articles, however, will not receive the same sensitive consideration. Instead, their addresses are listed below for the whole of the Milky Way to admire. When I drew up the bibliography on the back page I was pleased to see what a long tally it makes, and hopefully we can look forward to it becoming longer every year. Perhaps one day we could have a fanzine which does nothing except list Diana’s publications. It is also getting longer because this issue I have listed all the short stories in the collections. I have done this as a PUBLIC SERVICE. Why? Well, it is for the benefit of all those avid book-buyers like me who might otherwise end up with four copies of the short story Dragon Reserve, Home Eight, and three of The Sage of Theare. I had forgotten that both these stories were in the collection Warlock at the Wheel, which I had read but did not have a copy of until quite recently. So when I came across a collection of ‘Fantasy Stories by Women Writers’, Dragons and Warrior Daughters, edited by Jessica Yates (Collins, Tracks 1989), including a story by DWJ, I snapped it up eagerly. Read the story — Dragon Reserve — thought it was familiar, but was pleased to have it. At roughly the same time my local Oxfam shop supplied me with Hecate’s Cauldron (Daw 1982), ‘Thirteen new stories of the world of witches,’ edited by Susan Shwartz. The story The Sage of Theare was in that, so again I snapped it up, thought it was familiar, but was pleased to have it. Then I bought Minor Arcana, which has both the stories in it, and Everard’s Ride, which has Dragon Reserve. And finally I completed my collection with Warlock at the Wheel. Incidentally the Yates and Shwartz collections also supplied me with a few good other stories, as well as some total rubbish. I didn’t mind, because, I would have bought the DWJ books even if I had realised, partly because I would have wanted the new stories in them, but also, let us as least be honest with ourselves, because I am an addicted buyer of books. Cunning wisdom has finally come to me, and I now take a look inside a collection of short stories, to check its contents. But for those who would like a little forewarning, the bibliography has expanded. I don’t claim it is comprehensive, especially since I don’t know all the American editions, so if you spot something missing, do please let me know. I hereby offer a prize of a Milky Way choccie bar to anyone who can prove with a photo that they have all the different editions listed on the back. (I regret I must exclude Diana Wynne Jones herself from this competition, I feel.) Having read The Collector, by John Fowles, about a man who kidnaps and ends up killing a woman, not to say Neil Gaiman’s revoltingly fascinating Sandman episodes about the serial collectors (read killers) convention, I am reluctant to say I am a collector of anything. I guess I am more of an acquirer and storer of books. In fact, the only thing I hate about loving books is the sheer numbers of them that accumulate. But each one, whichever box in the cellar it inhabits, is dearly appreciated. Surely I am not a Sepulchre for Books. In Dorothy Dunnett’s The Ringed Castle (another highly recommended writer, by the way), when the heroine brings some books to the imprisoned princess who will become Queen Elizabeth I, she talks about one of the so-called learned men about court: "Not a philologas, but a bibliotaphos ..." For the Latinly-challenged amongst us, she kindly supplies a translation. The man is "not a lover of learning, but a sepulchre for books." I can hear the howls of outrage echoing my own self-analysis. "What me, a book hoarder! Every item in my library has been carefully chosen! I know and love every one! Each one is important and I just have to have them!" Okay, hands up. How many of you, like me, have ended up with not just multiple copies of short stories, but several copies of the same book? I once had four copies of Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady. But I can justify myself! Most of my stuff was in storage in between house moves, so I didn’t realise I already had a copy (well, actually I admit that at that time I must have already had two). So I know that I should have realised I already had it. But simple confusion took over. I gleefully bought a copy in Oxfam (my third), promptly shoved it into storage, and a few weeks later saw a different edition, knew I didn’t have that one, and greedily snapped it up. And having finally moved, with mounds of books all round me, it took me weeks to discover how I’d wasted my precious book-buying money. I really hope someone else will admit to this sort of thing. Surely I’m not the only one ... Meredith, the sepulchre for books News | Autobiography | Picture Gallery | Book List | A-Z of Related Worlds | Articles/Talks | Interview | Book Swap | Leave a Question | Other DWJ sites | Contact Meredith |
