The Omnibus of Time
From Author Wars - https://authorwars.com/publications/the-omnibus-of-time-44848.html
Overview:
- Title: The Omnibus of Time
- Author: Ralph Milne Farley
- Year: 1950
- Publisher: Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc.
- Price: $3.50
- Pages: 315
- Binding: Hardcover
- Type: Collection
- Title Reference: The Omnibus of Time
- Notes:
- Copyright 1950 by Ralph Milne Farley.
- Individual story's copyright and publication information on copyright page.
- Hard cover is gray with "The Omnibus of Time • Farley" at top of spine and "• FPCI" on bottom spine.
- Price located on inner flap top front cover.
- Jacket design by John Arfstrom on bottom inner flap front cover.
- "The Man Who Lived Backward" is billed as "The Man Who Lived Backwards" in the table of contents.
- "The Missing Chapter of The Radio War" is billed as "The Missing First Chapter of The Radio War" in the table of contents. According to the copyright page, this chapter first appeared in the fanzine ''Fantasy Magazine'' in 1934.
- "I Killed Hitler" is subtitled "Written and published just before Pearl Harbor" (actually appeared in the July 1941 issue of ''Weird Tales''.)
- "The Hidden Universe" is subtitled "Extracts from a novel-length story of a weird universe in solid space". It combines small excerpts from the original novella with plot summaries of the omitted material. At the end of the extract there is a note: "The Complete text of this novel-length story is shortly to appear in book form." See the ''Hidden Universe'' collection published by FPCI later in 1950, which reprinted the full text of the novella.
- "The Golden City" is subtitled "Extracts from a novel-length story based on an actual Pacific Ocean Mirage". At the end of the extract there is a note: "The Complete text of this novel-length story is shortly to appear in book form." This apparently didn't happen until Pulpville Press reprinted it in 2006.
- "Introduction" states that "In several of my stories, in their original form, there were many mathematico-physical footnotes. These have all now been excised, and then gathered together in a final post-mortem at the end of this book where I discuss the various scientific theories of time, and compare all my own various inconsistent theories and techniques." Presumably, this refers to the essay "After Math" at the end of the book.
- Tuck has the page count 16+315, which is hard to understand as the actual pagination starts on page 16.
- "Daddy!" by Jack L. Chalker in Fantasy Newsletter No. 61, August 1983 states that 2000 copies were printed, of which 1500 were clothbound, but only 500 at a time, and "there is no record whatsoever of what the first state was and nobody has ever been able to figure it out".
- Chalker also notes the other 500 copies were sold for Pick-a-Book.